


The Scottish Play

by impulsereader



Series: you can imagine... [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Post Reichenbach, post reunion, you can imagine verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-10
Updated: 2012-09-10
Packaged: 2017-11-13 22:52:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/508590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impulsereader/pseuds/impulsereader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It turns out that Sherlock’s Uncle Rocky lives on a rambling estate (John refuses to call The House a castle, he really does) in the Chilterns.  Each year, all Holmes relations (close, distant, and honorary) are free to join the gathering which takes place there for a fortnight over the Christmas holiday.  As Sherlock explains to John, “Various activities are undertaken; hunting, nature walks, recitations and chamber music in the evenings, there will be Shakespeare performed, the children will be given tuition in painting and chess among other things, we will all Dress For Dinner each evening.  It will all be terribly boring and tedious, but I have been threatened in the severest of terms if I do not present myself and pass the interminably dull time along with everyone else.”  Of course, nothing is ever that simple (or dull) when the boys are on the scene.  Soon Sherlock is having a bit of a breakdown, John is posing shirtless, they end up with a case involving a missing horse, Sherlock tutors the kiddies in science, and John is about to discover exactly how seriously the Holmes clan takes their Shakespeare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act I

*****  
Actus Primus.

SH: Afghanistan or Iraq?  
JW: Sorry?  
SH: Which was it, Afghanistan or Iraq?  
JW: Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you...?

Enter a Doctor.  
*****

London’s air was December-crisp the day John arrived home to find Sherlock’s bag packed. His violin’s case had been placed next to it just inside and a garment bag was hanging hooked over the top of the door. He raised his eyebrows a bit because there had been no prior notification of an impending trip, and if there was a trip in the offing it would be the first since Sherlock’s return to Britain, England, London, Baker Street, and John.

He proceeded past the bag and found its owner peering into his microscope in the kitchen. “Going somewhere then?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“The country.”

“Care to be more specific?”

“No.”

“Sherlock.”

He tore his gaze from the instrument with a sigh which seemed to indicate doing so was tantamount to stabbing himself in the heart. “It is the first Christmas since I came back from the dead. My presence has been demanded in no uncertain terms for the Duration of the annual familial gathering of seasonal celebration.”

John considered this carefully. “Your family, which presumably consists of individuals in addition to Mycroft, goes to the country each year to celebrate Christmas?”

“Oh, well summarized, John.”

“Christmas isn’t for another twelve days. When are you leaving?”

“In an hour.”

“What are you going to do for twelve days?”

“Fourteen. The traditional stay is of a fortnight's duration. Various activities are undertaken; hunting, nature walks, recitations and chamber music in the evenings, there will be Shakespeare performed, the children will be given tuition in painting and chess among other things, we will all Dress For Dinner each evening. It will all be terribly boring and tedious, but I have been threatened in the severest of terms if I do not present myself and pass the interminably dull time along with everyone else.”

John found this intriguing on a few levels. One, it meant there was presumably someone who could threaten Sherlock with something which actually got results; this he had to learn more about if at all possible. Two, the idea of a houseful of Holmeses performing the activities in question was completely bizarre and bound to be thoroughly entertaining; the thought ‘or thoroughly terrifying’ flickered across his brain but he ignored it. Three, he would happily kill to see either Sherlock or Mycroft tutor a child in anything.

“Right then, sounds like good fun. I’ll be ready to go - in an hour you said?”

Sherlock’s expression turned from bored, thoroughly annoyed and mildly mutinous to astonished, and John was always pleased when he managed to astonish his brilliant friend. “What are you on about?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going with you.”

“Why?” he asked in a tone of complete bewilderment.

“Sherlock, if you think I’m going to spend another Christmas watching Harry get drunk when I've been presented with an alternate plan which sounds as if it could feature in a Doctor Who special, you actually are an idiot.” He shrugged. “Besides, letting you out of my sight tends to go badly for both of us.”

“Hm.”

John decided to take this for agreement and hastily went upstairs to pack his bag.

*****  
Enter three Witches.  
*****

They were met at Chinoor by a tall, lean man with slate grey hair fastened into a ponytail at his nape. When he spoke, it was with a thick French accent. “Sherlock! Mon dieu, back from the dead.”

“Hello, Uncle Claude.”

The older man clapped Sherlock in a quick embrace.

“And the famous Doctor Watson.” John found himself on the receiving end of a hug as well; right, French.

“Yes; John, my Great-Uncle Claude.”

“I have strict instructions to take you to the cottage and then the Dower House before anyone else gets even a glimpse of you.”

“Tea, first with Grandmère and then Grandmother,” Sherlock translated.

“Your Grandmère is quite anxious to hear all about your adventures.”

Sherlock seemed to perk up a bit at that.

An ancient Morris awaited them in the car park and successfully transferred them and their bags to a cheerful, snug little cottage. A riot of vines sporting leaves shading from green to red and back again clung to the brick, covering most of it. The windows were all thrown open wide despite the mild chill in the air and the sound of a cheerful tune being played on a piano poured out of them to greet the newly arrived guests.

Claude shook his head ruefully as they made their way up the walk. “She does it just to annoy me.” He thrust the door open forcefully and bellowed, “Every window in the place wide open! Why can’t we be snug in the dead of winter? I should take Sherlock away again as punishment!”

The music stopped and a very short, neat-looking little woman appeared in the doorway. “Sherlock!” Her voice was only lightly tinted with the French accent which suffused Claude’s. She threw herself at Sherlock, and she was so small in comparison to his height that he couldn’t help the fact that he picked her up off her feet when he returned the embrace.

“Hello, Grandmère.”

She held onto him for a long while, two or three minutes. Then she sighed, and he carefully set her back on her feet. She looked up at him, placed her hands firmly on her hips, and began to speak at him in very rapid, very emphatic French in a tone which clearly conveyed the sort of extreme displeasure usually reserved for matters such as traffic snarls caused by Jeremy Clarkson; or, if you didn’t happen to live at 221B Baker Street, a head in the fridge. John caught lots of odieux, détestable, cruel, terrible; interpolated the odd méchant, peu gentil, haïssable, and effrayant; watched as, under this assault, Sherlock slowly wilted until he was a sad-looking sort of round-shouldered lump of misery. With one last scathing, ‘épouvantable!’ she turned on her heel and whirled back into the room from which she had appeared.

John took in the completely devastated Sherlock before him and looked after her in awe. “When you turned up back at the flat - I should have rung Mycroft and had him send a car for her.”

“Quite,” said the lump of misery.

Claude, who was clearly holding back laughter, clapped his nephew on the back encouragingly. “Come. We shall have tea. This always makes you English boys feel better. Come along, Sherlock.” He chivvied him along after Grandmère with a wink back at John.

Grandmère was already pouring out when the three men joined her. Claude propped Sherlock up on the sofa then sat in a chair and stretched out his long legs indulgently. John sat on the sofa with his friend and responded, “Milk, no sugar please,” to the raised eyebrow aimed his way.

“I am very pleased to meet you, Doctor Watson. I am Sherlock’s paternal grandmother, Sabine.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs Holmes.”

“Please, call me Grandmère. We’ve all heard so much about you, you’re a part of the Holmes clan already. We’re so grateful to you for looking after Sherlock so well.”

John felt his neck flush red at this praise. “Well, someone has to do it.”

“And Mycroft has always been so heavy-handed about it; he was always so very protective of little Sherlock, I’m afraid that hasn’t translated well into adulthood.”

“Erm, no; no, it really hasn’t.”

“And so you’ve improved matters immensely, Doctor, and we’re all very pleased to finally meet you.”

A thought occurred to John, and he was startled into asking, “Sorry, how did you know I was coming? I sort of invited myself along at the last minute. Actually, I was expecting to have to kip on a sofa somewhere.”

“Oh, Mycroft sent word ahead. He thought the staff would like to know that another room would be in order. He’s always very thoughtful that way.”

“Ah. Yes, of course, he’s very thoughtful.” John wouldn’t really have phrased it that way himself, but…

“Doctor Watson,” Claude suddenly broke in, “I would like to begin a portrait while you’re here. Would you sit for me?”

Startled, John turned to him and saw that while they’d been talking Claude had sketched him, or at least his head. It was just a quick pencil sketch on a small piece of paper, but it was very good; clean, minimalist lines clearly caught the puzzlement which he had felt just moments before. A vision of himself standing in an old-fashioned Admiral’s uniform, redolent with gold braid, his hand thrust into the coat between buttons, tricorn crowning the lot, flashed into his head. “Oh. Erm; of course.”

“Bon. We will begin tomorrow. I shall walk up to the house after breakfast.” He glanced at the mantel clock. “Sabine, I should take the boys up to the Dower House.”

Grandmère’s face resolved into a pout. “I haven’t heard anything from Sherlock at all yet!”

Claude chuckled as he rose to his feet. “This is entirely your own fault, mon soeur. Come along, boys.”

John put down his cup. “Thank you so much for the tea; it was lovely.”

“Yes, yes. Come any time you’re feeling overwhelmed. We’re quite independent and cosy here, Claude and I.”

John chivvied the still practically comatose Sherlock back out to the Morris and the three men continued on.

“Just one more Gran, then?”

Claude shot him an amused glance. “Just one, but The One.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Sabine’s mother-in-law resides in the Dower House, but she will remove to the main house for the Duration in order to keep a close eye on the Production.”

“Sorry, the production?”

“MacBeth. This year’s Production is MacBeth. “

“Oh right, Sherlock did mention Shakespeare.”

The Dower House proved as impressive as it sounded. While it was not massive in size it was very definitely - Grand.

John was ushered into an equally Grand parlour and very nearly missed the occupant completely, because she was tiny; tinier even than Grandmère, and he found himself wondering how such tiny women had produced a descendant as tall and patently un-containable as Sherlock.

The tiny, ancient woman sat perched in the middle of an elegant settee upholstered with a rich gold brocade. Her face was lined with tissue paper wrinkles and she was nothing but skin and bone; John would have feared to expose her to a strong breeze on the chance she might float away. As they approached her she slid to her feet - they hadn’t even reached the floor when she had been seated, he noted - and leaned just lightly on a delicate walking stick as she took a step or two to meet Sherlock. She spoke in a voice pitched Alto and her ringing tone implied a familiarity with the stage; it seemed impossible that so small a person could produce so resounding a tone. “Oh, Bravo, Sherlock! Such a masterful performance! You had us all fooled, of course!”

His friend dutifully lowered himself enough to receive a kiss on each cheek. “Thank you, Grandmother,” he said, but his voice was still a mere shadow of the gloat this would have been before his Grandmère’s set down.

“My friend, Doctor John Watson.”

“Yes, of course. How lovely to make your acquaintance, Doctor. I am Sherlock’s Great-Grandmother, but you may call me Grandmother; all the children do, as Sabine is so obligingly French and there aren’t any others lying about.”

John found himself feeling a little choked up by the fact that two little old grannies had just declared him a part of their family. He was surprised by this, and hurried the emotion on its way. “That’s very kind of you, Grandmother. I’m very happy to meet you.”

Imperiously, Grandmother decreed, “Sit. The tea is just ready.” Before they could obey, however, they were joined by what John interpreted as unexpected guests. Grandmother did not look pleased.

\-----  
Sennet sounds. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady Macbeth as Queen, Lennox, Ross, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants.  
\-----

“Sherlock! Darling!”

Sherlock’s brain suddenly switched itself back on and whirred into survival mode – position awareness – initial estimation – detail assessment and planning – controlled environment shifts to a changing environment.

John felt his friend go stiff at his side as this new, strident voice broke in. The room suddenly acquired an air of tension; the audience pulled in a collectively held breath because the tightrope walker had stumbled. Sherlock’s body pivoted away from his, and his partner was suddenly acting a part. “Mummy. Father. How nice to see you.”

John took up his supporting position at Sherlock’s side, just a half step behind; gun hand ready.

They made for a striking visual, Sherlock’s parents, which made sense, considering. The woman, Sherlock’s mother, was a beauty; fading, true, but a beauty nonetheless. John was strongly reminded of Irene Adler. A luxurious fur stole and a hat which could have passed for modern sculpture marked her as posh, and the pose she was striking on the arm of her husband told him Sherlock had learnt the acting aspect of his trade at her knee.

Her counterpart in this tableau of privilege and breeding was taller than Sherlock; at a guess, taller even than Mycroft. Despite a thick shock of hair gone stark white, which contrasted violently with his wife’s aggressively ink-dark tresses, he still gave off an air of powerful physicality. John didn’t like what he saw in his eyes; something of the combatant, something of the bully there.

Sherlock was immediately aware that his father’s gaze and attention were fixed on John alone; he wasn’t sure yet what that indicated so he left the information to be slotted into place properly later. His own attention was diverted when his mother suddenly swooped in, seemingly to apply her red, red lipstick to his cheek, but failing when she pulled away just short of actually touching any part of him. The rope-walker flinched in sympathy, wobbling as a result.

John was coolly assessing many different factors, just as he had been taught to do as both a doctor and a soldier. The most immediate threat was Sherlock’s father; he had no idea why, but why didn’t tend to matter in combat so he didn’t worry about it, simply allocated 45% of his attention to monitoring Combatant Father. Next, he was deeply concerned about the aggressive darting motion Sherlock’s mother was performing in the vicinity of her son’s face; her movements put into his head the image of a bird plucking an eyeball from its socket. This merited 35% of his remaining resources.

“Viola, Hannibal; how delightfully unexpected it is to see you so soon. I was under the impression you would not be arriving until next week.” Grandmother’s tone acidly belied her expressed delight and the tension in the room ratcheted up again; the walker turned on the rope and began the return journey instead of retiring to the safety of his platform.

This put Grandmother on the field as a firm ally and John shifted just slightly so that she was at his back. He then shot a measuring glance at Sherlock, who appeared serene, but that was because he was hiding behind one of the masks he was so adept at donning. He decided that this was a perfectly acceptable way of coping with the current situation, at least until he gained more facts which would clue him in to what shape the situation actually formed; how many sides and angles it had. He allocated 10% of his attention to monitor for changes in Sherlock and reserved the last 10% to assess any new factors which cropped up.

“Grandmother.” Mrs Holmes administered her patented aggressive pecking motion in the direction of the older woman, and both John and Sherlock shifted just slightly forward as if to instinctively throw themselves between Grandmother and a grenade, or perhaps to catch the walker who was so unwisely working without a net.

Sherlock couldn’t quite keep the ghost of a smile from his lips when John missed not a beat of the dynamic. His instinctive understanding of danger always served him well. Mummy, after all, had been known to scatter shrapnel in her wake; candy-coated if you were lucky, crystalline-jagged if you were not. Even so, the portion of John’s attention which had been trained on Father would remain focused there as long as the two men occupied the same space; position, it was all about position, the art of war.

His father made his bow to his ancestor as well, then turned to his son. “Sherlock,” he greeted, and John very nearly flinched, because he said it in Sherlock’s voice. How was that possible, he wondered; neither the shape of the larynx nor the precise length of a person’s vocal chords was inheritable.

Unaware of the tightrope which had been stretched across the room until it nearly took his head off, Claude entered whistling cheerfully, a sound which died a swift death as he visibly bristled after crossing the threshold. He took in the occupants and forced a version of the smile he’d had for Sherlock and John when they had alighted from the train. “Hannibal, Viola, many happy returns of the season.”

Viola effused, “Thank you, Uncle Claude,” and glided over to get close enough to peck at him as well.

Hannibal gave a curt nod.

Claude’s eyes narrowed slightly and his posture turned just a touch aggressive. “Have you been to see your mother yet, Hannibal? She hadn’t been informed of the change in your arrival date when I last spoke with her – ten minutes ago.” The walker eyed the men warily, wishing they’d stop distracting him.

“I will see Mother in my own time, Claude.”

“We were so very anxious to see dear Sherlock, you see,” Viola gushed. “I’m afraid we rushed right here.”

John gaped. They were anxious to see the man they had yet to actually touch in greeting? They were anxious to see their son who, John just now realized, they had not laid eyes on since his return from the grave months earlier?

Somewhat surprisingly, at least to John, it was Grandmother who swiftly and efficiently improved the situation. “Hannibal, this is simply unacceptable. Your first duty is to your mother. You will go to her directly. You may then return here and visit me.” Clearly reluctant, Combatant Father opened his mouth to argue, but got no further. “Go. Now.” The order brooked no refusal; the words themselves almost seemed to shift him bodily with the sheer force of will they represented. Able to hold fast against them for only a few seconds, he grit out, “As you wish, Grandmother,” before he turned on his heel and her gaze forced him from the room.

John reflected that here, then, was the answer to how Sherlock had been convinced to come down here in the first place; Grandmother’s orders must prove effective through the telephone, or possibly even by text.

With Hannibal’s exit the tightrope walker bowed and retired for the evening to relieved, if not enthusiastic, applause. Claude sank into a chair with a deep sigh. Grandmother wrinkled her nose at the elaborate tea tray. “We’ll need a new pot, now,” she said disapprovingly, and rang the tiny silver bell.

Once her husband was gone, Viola dropped what John assumed was only the outside layer of her façade; effusive mother disappeared and she assumed a strictly business-like attitude as she seated herself, then took a cigarette case from her handbag.

Viola looked pointedly at Claude until he began to rummage in his pockets for a lighter he very likely didn’t have. “I suppose I should have gone with him,” she observed as she waited.

“Nonsense, Sabine despises you. She’ll have enough to deal with keeping Hannibal in line; why should you make it more difficult?”

Jesus, thought John, but Viola threw back her head and emitted a low-throated laugh. She then worked her way around to patting vaguely in the direction of Sherlock’s knee. When she very nearly succeeded in making contact with the fabric of his trousers, John held his breath, unsure if this alarming woman’s touch would actually soothe or merely leave behind a rash. The mystery would remain unsolved. Her hand did not make actual contact. John raised his eyes from her hand to her face and found her own gaze was fixed on him. “Introduce me to your,” she paused, came to a decision and continued, “friend, Sherlock, Love.”

Obediently, Sherlock introduced John. Viola looked distinctly unimpressed.

Claude had finally managed to scrounge up a match from somewhere and he lit it only to see the flame stutter out into nothing almost immediately.

“Pity,” remarked Grandmother blithely as a new pot of tea was brought in by a uniformed maid. John stared at her in disbelief. Had she just – no, there was no possible way this little old granny had just put a flame out with the power of her mind – there was simply no way. Still, he reflected, it was Sherlock’s Great Grandmother; he supposed he’d seen stranger things.

“Viola, put that nasty thing away and ask your son about his train journey.”

Viola looked startled, rather as if she’d forgotten she had a son, much less that he was occupying the same room as she. “Oh yes, how was your trip down, my Darling?” She glanced at Sherlock, then away again, but didn’t pause long enough to allow for a response before chattering on, “Your father and I drove, of course. He’s such a demon on the road.”

As his mother chatted to the room in general about the new Aston and her new hat, John eyed Sherlock. He had retreated completely behind a mask of impassivity.

*****  
Hoboyes. Torches. Enter a Sewer, and diuers Seruants with Dishes and Seruice ouer the Stage. Then enter Macbeth  
*****

It didn’t take long, just until after that first evening’s dinner, for John to realize that Sherlock’s parents were in fact anxious to see (or at least shout at and threaten) both of their sons; they were simply waiting for a slightly more private moment to do so.

Back at the flat, when John had presented his suit for Sherlock’s inspection and (bordering on grudging) approval, he had been fairly convinced that his friend must be having him on with this whole ‘dressing for dinner’ business. This belief was dispelled when he saw the size of The House. The rambling country manor (he refused to think of it as a castle) was enormous and even from outside he could predict it would contain such things as priceless antiques, gargantuan stone fireplaces inside which one would have enough room to turn a pig on a spit, suits of armour keeping watch over long hallways lined with family portraits and heavy velvet drapes, and very possibly a ballroom. So dressing for dinner suddenly seemed like the least of the things which might be expected of him.

When Sherlock rapped smartly at his bedroom door, he opened it to find the detective dressed in his standard attire; the only nods to a heightened formality at dinner being the absence of: one, obvious chemical burns on his cuffs and, two, a bag of severed limbs as an accessory. John found he was uncomfortably reminded that the pair of them had been dressed almost exactly like this when they had left the flat for Moriarty’s trial - and if that wasn’t the wrong visual with which to start any evening - well, it just definitely was, was all.

His friend was still very subdued as he instructed, “Let me see, if you please; turn around.”

Before he’d seen The House John would have found this second inspection annoying and insulting; now he gladly closed the door behind him and obligingly pirouetted for his friend. “Sherlock, this place is enormous.”

“Yes, so you mentioned.” He brushed at John’s shoulders fastidiously; he was still unhappy with the cut of the jacket, but there had been no time to arrange for a fitting. “You look fine. Let’s go, we don’t want to be late. After dinner my Aunt Sophia will give her traditional, and wretched, recitation of The Raven followed by various musical performances.”

“Right.” They began walking, and John ventured, “Sherlock, I think I’ve already seen more than a hundred people knocking about this place. Are they all your family?”

“Mostly. Quite extended family with lots of honorary uncles and aunties thrown in. The seething mass of children seems to take up more space than I imagine it actually does. I understand you were allotted the last available bedroom. Overflow arrivals were being routed to the Dower House, but Grandmother has only fifteen, so they may be turning people away now.”

John felt his mouth fall open. “You’ve got to be joking!”

“Well, not everyone stays for the Duration, they’ll simply be put off a few days depending up their schedules. There will be a lot of musical bedrooms being played over the course of the fortnight.”

John was still gaping at him, and Sherlock misinterpreted this when he glanced over. “Oh good lord,” he scoffed, “not actual musical bedrooms; you won’t be bounced around or expected to share.”

He didn’t bother to correct his friend, he just allowed himself to silently boggle at the sheer number of Holmeses gathered in one place. He wondered what kept this situation from causing a dangerous cosmic anomaly for Sherlock to study, like a wormhole or other Star Trek some such.

Dinner itself wasn’t terrible. The fact that it was served in the ballroom (which did in fact prove to exist) at a table which could have seated the entire British Monarchy (plus all the third cousins twice-removed whom nobody actually liked) was just something that his mind had to accept in order to get on with things. 20% of his attention was still firmly focused on Sherlock’s parents (15% on Combatant Father and 5% on Unpredictable Mummy) so he got an immediate sit rep on their positions at the table. Sherlock steered him away from them when choosing their seats so the percentages monitoring their movements remained constant rather than spiking.

Before the first course was served, the gentleman seated at the head of the table rose to offer a toast. He was an elderly man with hair and beard gone completely white, and he gave off a distinct air of amiable joviality. “Welcome everyone! I’ll keep it short and just remind you all to have fun and rock on while you’re visiting!”

There was a rather rousing response of, “Rock on,” from perhaps three quarters of the diners as everyone lifted a glass. John blinked and turned an inquiring gaze upon Sherlock. A flash of amusement flickered across the blankness of the mask.

“That is my Uncle Rocky, our host. He is Father’s elder brother and he is dotty as a loon, as you can easily infer from the fact that he allows Grandmother to inflict this yearly gathering upon his household.”

John was prevented from asking any follow-up questions because the dining partner to his other side reached over and touched her hand to his arm. Politely, John turned to her. She was a pretty girl somewhat younger than him, and he looked into serious, intelligent eyes behind a pair of spectacles. Sherlock had introduced her as a distant cousin by the name of Claire when they had seated themselves.

“I read the news today.”

A little uncertainly, John responded, “Did you?”

She nodded. “Oh boy.”

“Erm, right.” He considered this sentiment for a second then admitted, “Yes, actually, I suppose that’s generally my reaction to the news these days. The government are certainly mucking it up, aren’t they?”

“We can work it out,” she offered with a careless shrug.

“Yes, I suppose it will work itself out in the end.” He snorted with laughter and added, “Or, at least, Mycroft will do.”

“Will it bring you down?”

John considered this. “Well, he can be an annoying git, but I suppose someone has to be in charge of things.”

“Sail the ship,” she responded sympathetically and shrugged again.

“Yes, though I do wish he’d stop sending cars.” He frowned and decided to change the subject. “Have you come far, Claire, or do you live nearby?”

“I flew in from Miami Beach.”

“Oh, quite far then. Mrs Hudson, our landlady, lived in Miami years ago.”

“Caught the early plane back to London.”

He winced in sympathy. “Those morning flights can be murder.”

“Didn’t get to bed last night,” she agreed with a sigh.

John was starting to get an odd sort of feeling about this conversation, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. There was a break, though, as a server discreetly slipped a bowl of soup in front of each of them. John took the chance to check on Sherlock; still locked behind the mask, exchanging a few banal words with a tweedy-looking older gentleman who was peering at him myopically. The fact that he was employing polite dinner conversation worried him more than the mask at this point. He turned his attention to the soup, which was quite good.

He prodded Sherlock a bit, but was unsuccessful in eliciting anything other than bored-sounding monosyllables. During the next course, just as he was finishing a lovely piece of chicken which tasted of lemon and pepper, Claire’s voice inquired near his ear, “And have you travelled very far?” and he turned back to her. “No, we’re just down from London by train.”

“You don’t know how lucky you are.” Her tone was envious.

“Oh, I do, actually,” he assured her sincerely. “I love London. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

“The farther one travels, the less one really knows.”

John’s brow furrowed unconsciously. “Hmmm,” was all he could find to offer in response.

She took a moment to study him, looking him very directly in the eyes. She then leaned toward him slightly and asked him in a perfectly earnest tone, “How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?”

John stared at her, lovely chicken forgotten, his brain whirring madly then finally clicking. Tentatively, he tried, “Got to be good looking ‘cause he’s so hard to see?”

She smiled brightly, clearly pleased. “You can learn how to play the game,” she praised.

Desperately, he racked his brain. “We’re gonna have a good time!” he exclaimed triumphantly.

Her eyes sparkled with amusement. “We’re all alone and there’s nobody else.”

John momentarily drew a blank again. He resisted the urge to hum aloud and instead tried running through titles, those were easier to remember. Finally, knowing he was stretching a point, he offered, “Let it be?”

Claire smiled, and allowed it. “You and me chasing paper, getting nowhere.”

The next one came more easily now that he was getting used to running choruses through in his head. “You know it ain’t easy. You know how hard it can be.”

“Well, I knew, but I could not say.”

“You stick around and it may show,” he assured her.

She nodded and gestured at the people all around them. “They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe.”

“Eating chocolate cake in a bag,” he agreed. He’d always liked that image, people blindly eating cake, oblivious to what was going on around them.

“Listen to the music playing in your head,” she insisted. “If you think the harmony is a little dark and out of key, you’re correct.”

“Take a sad song and make it better. We’d all love to see the plan.” Immensely proud of himself for getting two different songs in that one, he wondered vaguely if Mycroft could actually get people to adopt this habit, and if it really would make the world a better place. “This could only happen to me,” he assured Claire.

*****  
Drumme and Colours. Enter Malcolme, Seyward, Macduffe, and their Army, with Boughes.  
*****

The Raven was indeed poorly done. He had no idea why they let this woman inflict it upon the gathering on an annual basis. Perhaps there was blackmail involved. Still, best to get it out of the way, he supposed. Afterward they got an aria from Don Giovanni and a piano piece he didn’t recognize but which the programme assured him was Bach. Then, to his delight, the next performer began Bolero which was rather a favourite of his. So John was just starting to really enjoy the music and relax a bit when Not Anthea suddenly appeared and whispered something into Sherlock’s ear. How much did Mycroft have to pay her to spend Christmas here, he wondered.

“Mycroft is with your parents.”

Sherlock stiffened, just a touch. He nodded his understanding that his presence was required. He inclined his head toward John’s ear and said softly, “I may not be able to return before the end of the program.” He then gracefully rose from his seat and left the room. He was distracted enough by the process of arranging his thoughts properly that he didn’t realize his friend had followed him until they were striding down the hallway, side by side. Allowing just a touch of his attention loose, Sherlock glanced at him in some surprise. “You were enjoying the music,” he observed.

John shrugged. “Yeah, well I don’t currently have a visual on either of your parents, so I’ll stick with you if that’s all right.”

For just a split second, impassivity gave way to something John didn’t at all like to see in Sherlock’s eyes, but it was such a quick flash of emotion that he couldn’t put a name to it. In its wake it left resignation lined with trepidation.

Sherlock was performing complicated calculations in his head which involved position and complementary opposites; the fact that John felt the need to keep him in sight was simply a painful side note. Once he had things slotted into place, he nodded and turned his attention forward again. “My parents and Mycroft,” he informed his companion shortly.

John nodded, and tried to pay some attention to the labyrinthine hallways down which they were stalking. It would be nice to get some idea of the layout of the house so that he didn’t spend the next fortnight either getting lost or having to be led around by the nose.

When they reached the door to the room which Sherlock’s father traditionally chose for these sorts of confrontations, he turned to John and allowed himself the slight quirk of his eyebrow which inquired, ‘Ready?’. His friend nodded in response so he took a deep breath and affixed the mask. He strode forward – turned the handle – entered the room – all in one grand flourish, the dramatic concluding pirouette left merely heavily implied. John, not missing a beat, was close on his heels and smoothly closed the door behind them. Sherlock was immensely pleased with the flow they had achieved. He couldn’t have staged it any better even if he’d had more time to prepare. They were working as a team, their partnership was seamless, and everyone in the room was now aware of that fact. This was an excellent beginning.

Unsurprisingly, the first thing which John noticed was the grenade. Military training tended to give a man that sort of attention to detail.

Hannibal Holmes lounged, all long limbs partially folded into a wing chair; the very personification of elegant dishabille. He was a pair of shoes propped on a footstool, polished to a sheen which reflected the glow of the fire; an impossibly long length of creased trouser; crisp white cotton, top button undone; and a face frozen into a mask of disdain. This particular personification was casually tossing a grenade from one hand to the other. John couldn’t immediately identify what sort of grenade it was without a closer look, but because the safety pin was intact he had to assume it was live.

A quick reconnaissance glance confirmed the presence of Mycroft and Mrs Holmes with an unexpected Not Anthea rounding out the party. Not Anthea’s gaze was firmly fixed on the grenade, eyes moving left to right, right to left, enacting a disturbing variant on an afternoon at Wimbledon. In fact the only person in the room who seemed wholly unconcerned by the miniature bomb in their midst was his wife, who was smoking a cigarette (not her first) and looking distinctly bored. John decided that it was a miracle at least twice over that Mycroft (who was eyeing his father, though his expression was neutral) and Sherlock (whose little finger had twitched just slightly) had survived to adulthood. He also decided that the grenade merited 100% of his attention.

He considered doing exactly what his instincts demanded: confiscate the damn thing no matter what effort it took to do so. He hesitated, though, because this was essentially a Holmes family matter and he was (honorary grandson status aside) not a member of this family. Perhaps it was perfectly normal for them to gather round weaponry to celebrate a Holiday, how was he to know? It was only this niggling technicality which stayed his hand.

“John, how lovely to see you.” Much to his surprise, Mycroft walked across the room to shake his hand. “I’m so pleased you were able to make it down after all.”

Only Mycroft could have said something so completely ridiculous. Amused despite himself, John reminded him, “I wasn’t actually invited.”

“No.” John inwardly flinched as his ears were assaulted by Sherlock’s apricot velvet cadence turned putrid with loathing. “You most certainly were not.”

Smoothly, Mycroft swivelled his attention to his father. “Have you been introduced to John, Father?”

“Not formally,” the man purred in response. John found that he was actually angry that Sherlock’s voice was issuing from the mouth of this man. It felt obscene.

Mycroft seemingly took no notice of the fact that the introduction was very definitely considered undesirable by both parties concerned. “May I present Doctor John Watson, Sherlock’s flatmate. John, our father, Hannibal Holmes.”

“Mr Holmes,” John inclined his head slightly, gaze still on the grenade, still considering if there was any even marginally polite way of securing it.

“Flatmate. Is that the polite term for arse bandit these days?”

Despite the malevolence given dimension which issued the insult, John actually relaxed for a split second. Honestly? The gay thing? That was going to be the big issue here? He automatically threw Sherlock his half of their now familiar, ‘Well, what are we going to tell this lot?’ look. They had adopted this standard glance and response fairly early on because in some situations it actually was better to pretend to be a couple. For the first time, though, he did not receive a subtly raised or lowered brow from Sherlock, apparently the mask didn’t allow for this sort of response.

Sherlock found himself feeling wrong-footed. The papers had been implying this virtually since they had been printing anything at all about him, but no prior hint of disapproval had ever surfaced; no elegant stationery arriving at Baker Street bearing neatly-lettered disgust had touched on this topic. Feeling uncertain of his footing so early in this confrontation was intensely disturbing. Ruthlessly, he shoved the alarm aside and considered his options. If he denied the accusation, there would simply be another on its heels, possibly one which was true and therefore automatically more difficult to address and dismiss. Better to allow this to be the issue and hope John would be at his back, his complementary opposite, the body to his mind.

Sherlock smiled pleasantly, and with a calculated swing of his hips sashayed across the room. As he did, he declaimed, “How clever of you, Father; you’ve anticipated our happy announcement. I believe we’ve settled on ‘lovers’ as the preferred term, actually. How kind of you to ask.” He turned his gaze briefly on his brother and instructed with a sniff, “Do keep up, Mycroft.”

Mycroft didn’t even bother trying to hide his sigh.

And so, John thought, he was now playing gay for Sherlock’s entire family for the rest of time. Fantastic. He wondered how long it would take for the hints about grandchildren to start cropping up. “I imagine we’ll set a date just as soon as I’ve convinced Sherlock to register for something other than a Bunsen burner and a centrifuge. I keep telling him we desperately need a new electric kettle,” he threw up his hands in genuine frustration, “but he just goes on about blood and-,”

Hannibal pulled the pin out of the grenade.

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” Instinctively, John leapt across the room and shoved Sherlock hard, sending him sprawling behind the sofa and diving after him, covering his body as best he could. A handful of seconds later, when no explosion was forthcoming, he realized Sherlock was poking at him, clearly annoyed. “Don’t even try to pretend that isn’t a live grenade, Sherlock,” he threatened in a hissing whisper.

“It most certainly is live, and Father is perfectly capable of lobbing it over the sofa,” he pointed out hotly, huffing out a breath in annoyance. “Do try to relax, John, he has yet to accidentally set one off.”

John noted the modifier with distinct unease. He stood, and offered his hand to pull Sherlock up after him. He then brushed himself off and marched over to Hannibal, who had replaced the pin and was smiling; the visual put John in mind of a feral cat. He put his hand out and firmly stated, “I’ll take that then. Thanks.” He was officially one of the family now that their newly-manufactured happy announcement was out there, and demanding his future husband not be blown up or gassed or even, quite frankly, merely flash-banged by his own father was the very least of the privileges which he considered that granted him.

They locked gazes, and John came to a realization. This man was amused by the fact that he was threatening his immediate family with an actual explosive device. This, whilst being completely horrifying, did explain a lot about Sherlock’s attitude toward gun safety. Without a word, merely a smirk, the grenade changed hands.

John studied the miniature bomb for a moment. The model was unfamiliar, so he decided not to try and disarm it. He simply checked the pin and then set the damned thing on an end table where he could keep an eye on it. He moved a chair slightly so he was between it and Hannibal then sat down. “Right, then,” he said, “was there something else you would rather discuss?”

Without any preamble, Viola stood up and announced shrilly, “This is all extremely upsetting.”

Both Mycroft and Not Anthea snapped to attention. Mycroft stepped to his left, putting himself between Sherlock and their mother. “Mummy, dear, none of us want you to be upset, I assure you.”

To pull the woman’s attention further from her younger son, John advised soothingly, “It’s actually quite fashionable to have a gay couple in the family these days. We can all skip right to being pleased about this without any real fuss, you know,” he was proud to note that he’d almost managed to sound hopeful.

What followed was – unpleasant – even without the grenade in play.

There was enough mental manipulation flying through the air from all the denizens of the family Holmes that John’s head spun and ached before they’d even got to Viola viciously blaming Hannibal for Sherlock being gay because he’d been away (with his secretary, was heavily implied) the weekend his second son’s voice had begun to break. Not that all the accusations, manipulations and machinations going on were related to Sherlock’s purportedly being gay, though, not by a long shot.

They started out quite simply. Hannibal icily accused Viola of having spoiled the children. Viola tearfully accused Mycroft of being insensitive to her feelings because he’d sent her a birthday present. Mycroft snottily implied that he should have been forced to continue taking piano lessons. Viola threw up into Hannibal’s face the wrecked Aston which had been a present from her father. Hannibal glowered darkly as he reminded Mycroft he had won the last game of chess they had played. Mycroft archly inquired if it had been absolutely necessary for his father to force him to play rugby quite as often as he had. Sherlock heatedly demanded Mycroft be put on trial in The Hague. John was a little surprised by how normal it all sounded. Despite the toxic personalities of the parents involved, this family unit still couldn’t quite manage to elevate its spats above those of any other.

Then, despite John and Mycroft’s best efforts, there was a rehashing of the legal woes and thoroughly undesirable publicity brought down upon the family which had resulted from teenaged Sherlock’s suicide attempt, which took the form of a deliberately-calculated cocaine overdose administered whilst standing in one of the fountains in Trafalgar Square. In order to stay focussed on the issue at hand, John filed this new landmark somewhere in his mind between the bathtub which had been the scene of Harry’s similar attempt and the parapet crowning Bart’s Pathology building – safely where he could put off thinking about it.

Branching out into general abuse, they touched on a wide variety of topics: the things Sherlock had blown up as a child, Hannibal’s drinking, the fact that Mycroft had driven off thirty-two individual governesses even before Sherlock was old enough to lend a hand, Viola’s flirting with the gardener, the number of times the back garden had been laid to waste by one of Sherlock’s experiments, Mycroft’s hatred of rugby (yes, again), the mysterious disappearance of an entire setting’s worth of Silver, Sherlock’s refusal to make small talk at parties, Viola’s refusal to leave her bed for days at a time, Hannibal’s wrecking of two dozen Astons over the course of the last year, Sherlock’s heated insistence that Mycroft be hauled up before a war crimes tribunal (yes, again), Viola’s refusal to let Mycroft pour out at his thirteenth birthday party, the things Mycroft had destroyed as a child, the incident when Hannibal had nearly run over Plutarch (whoever that was; John would almost guess another sibling based on the name) with one of the cars, the fact that Sherlock had driven off thirty-five individual governesses after Mycroft had left for Eton, the incident when Viola’s favourite aunt had woken up to find her hair dyed neon blue, Mycroft’s tendency to instigate wars in countries in which Hannibal had money invested, Sherlock’s refusal to visit, Mycroft’s hatred of cricket, and the many apparently priceless things Mycroft and Sherlock had together obliterated as children, to mention a few.

It went on and on, and every once in awhile one of Sherlock’s parents would fix John with a death glare to remind him that he himself was the most recent resentment which had been added to the list. Interestingly, neither of them actually tried to either pay or run him off; John had been expecting something of that sort. He eventually realized that no one actually cared that Sherlock was now supposedly gay. This was just the most recent excuse they’d seized on to shout vile things at one another. Not that they did shout, of course; not one of them once raised his voice. Each of the four Holmeses had staked out a battle position, fortified it with an ugly glare, and then proceeded to snipe nastily at the other three; obscenities delivered in the plumiest of tones.

John learned quite a lot that evening.

From some of the things which were vocalized he learned that Sherlock’s father was obsessed with appearances and consequently with somehow forcing Sherlock to behave properly, which his son utterly refused to do. John judged he had this man to thank for his finding human body parts scattered round the flat on a regular basis. He learned that when not acting a role, his mother had an emotional repertoire limited to either vacuous selfishness or razor-sharp malice aforethought, and the transition from one state to the other simply could not be predicted with any accuracy. After quite a lot of consideration, he assigned the blame to her for everything else which annoyed him about his flatmate.

From other things which were not vocalized he learned that Sherlock’s father was a cruel man; he learned that it was entirely possible that after they had emerged from her womb, Sherlock’s mother had never again initiated physical contact with either of her sons. He also learned that Mycroft’s creepy stalking of his brother was simply the continuation of a life-long habit of protecting him from these two. Unfortunately for the elder brother, this goal conflicted painfully with his belief that he had, and would continue, to utterly fail at this task because of Sherlock’s own refusal to remain out of the line of fire; whatever fire happened to be nearest, it didn’t matter who was firing at what, Sherlock would merrily fling himself into the fray. John sympathized with Myrcroft’s point quite a bit more than he was willing to admit aloud.

As he watched these people lay waste to one another emotionally, John resolved one thing for certain. He would begin hugging his friend on a daily basis; to hell with what people would say.

*****  
Exeunt.  
*****

Eventually, the hammering and the slicing stopped. He usually had no real idea what had caused them to stop, but in this case he was inclined to attribute the ceasefire to the seventy-sixth time John had mildly interjected, “How old was Sherlock when he did this, then?” and followed up with a much sharper, “Right, I think we should move on as he’s grown some since then.” His parents had to be finding that as annoying as he was at this point since everyone concerned knew he was still in possession of the necessary skills and, more importantly, willing to use those skills to blow up the back garden.

However it came about, his parents retired for the evening and he found himself in a room gone suddenly quiet and still. It was wonderful. Everyone else still in the room seemed to agree with him. They all simply sat in silence for a long while, the tension slowly ebbing away.

The first person to move was Not Anthea, who walked over to where John was sitting and distastefully gestured toward the grenade. “I’ll disarm that if you like.”

Grateful for the offer, he replied, “Yes, if you don’t mind, that would be utterly fantastic. Thank you.”

She picked it up and by the time she returned to her chair she had the detonator detached. She carefully separated the two elements, pocketing the smaller one and handing the now useless shell to Mycroft. He studied it thoughtfully before putting it down on the end table next to his chair.

He sighed. “Do assure me we won’t have to suffer through an actual farce of a wedding. Family weddings get so dreadfully messy.”

Sherlock started, and looked up at his brother. He was, as usual, sneering, but in this case it was just to add to the joke. A sharp bark of laughter startled Sherlock; it startled him even more when he realized it had come from him. Next to him, John let out a giggle of his own; it sounded rather forced, but it was still a reminder that crime scenes could be funny when it wasn’t your own psyche hemmed in by a chalk outline. He gave in to the giddy hysteria which was the source of his own laughter, and his partner followed suit.

“Do you think,” John managed a few minutes later, “that I should kip at the foot of your bed? It would add to the illusion and free up a room for someone else.”

“Oh yes, do,” Sherlock drawled, “I so look forward to kicking you off a score of times before morning.”

So he and John laughed together as a direct result of a joke told by Mycroft. It was the most bizarre of situations, but at least it was better than crying.

After another little while, the two of them staggered giddily to bed and, somewhat curiously, John insisted on hugging him before they retired to their separate rooms for the night. Sherlock ended up attributing this to John being grateful there was a bedroom to which he could retire. He hadn’t protested that this had been Mycroft’s doing because he had found the physical contact surprisingly bracing. He also did not want John to go back and hug Mycroft; the mental image was disturbing.


	2. Act II

*****  
Actus Secundus.

SH: The bullet they just dug out of the wall's from a handgun. A kill shot over that distance, that's a crack shot. But not just a marksman, a fighter. His hands couldn't have shaken at all so clearly he's acclimatized to violence. He didn't fire until I was in immediate danger though, so strong moral principle. You're looking for a man probably with a history of military service, and...nerves of steel... actually, do you know what? Ignore me.

Enter a Servant.  
*****

The next morning, Sherlock gathered himself for the task of breakfasting, sighed at the drudgery of it all one last time, then rapped smartly at John’s door.

“Morning.”

“Good morning.” He gestured vaguely down the hall, and led the way to breakfast.

A short time later, standing, plate in hand, he considered carefully the positions it would be best to take up. He surveyed the tables with a casual eye, but even a casual Sherlockian gaze missed nothing. Twittering Cousins Lotta, Nigel and Marigold – harmless but annoying. A trio of golden heads – the Second Cousin twice removed triplet girls finally grown to adulthood – an unknown psychological quantity. Cousin Simon and his lot – a definite threat to his sanity. Mycroft and – oh, that was interesting – he seriously considered swanning over to that table and pulling up two additional, completely unwelcome chairs – no, as much as he hated to admit it, his brother was more an ally than an enemy in his current setting – best not to antagonize unless absolutely necessary. Cousin Judy, Alistair and Sandy – a reasonable possibility – the annoyance level might be acceptable. Great Aunt Minerva and a man who was a stranger to him but works in the City – recently widowed – is contemplating killing the deceased wife’s cat – suffers from insomnia – no point, really. Uncle Richard, Aunt Mary and Peter – a distinct possibility – annoyance level minimal – Army connection to provide easy conversation. The decision made, he nudged John accordingly, steering him toward the chosen table.

“Uncle Richard, Aunt Mary, this is Doctor John Watson. John, my Aunt and Uncle Hannay, and my Cousin Peter.”

Greetings were duly exchanged.

Sherlock seated himself and promptly found a thick sheaf of sheet music thrust into his eggs on toast. “Finally got a cellist. Rehearsals nine o’clock sharp each morning in the small library.” The grizzled old man turned and marched away after making his pronouncement.

Daintily, he rescued the papers from his breakfast. They had once comprised two neatly bound examples of the first printings of Bartók’s second and fourth quartets, issued in Vienna in 1920 and 1929 respectively. Over the ensuing years, though, they had been studied and creased and written on, and now they were being held together with sellotape and their owner’s sheer force of will. They resembled nothing more closely than a stack of abused, yellowed love letters. The edges of the sheets were flaking from the daily handling their recipient lavished upon the pages; reliving an affair over and over again by running his hands along each centimetre of the pages as if they were the flesh of his lover. In answer to John’s questioning look he said, “It seems my Great-Uncle Forester has finally been gifted with a complete string quartet in residence for the Duration. He is an ardent lover of Bartók.”

“Who’s that now?”

Sherlock flicked a bit of egg from the sheaf as he elaborated, “Béla Bartók was a Hungarian composer and what we would now term ethnomusicologist.”

John stared at him blankly. “A – what now?”

Sherlock considered the best way to explain the rather mad concept. “He collected folk songs, wandering the countryside with a phonograph strapped to a pack mule. My Uncle attempted a similar activity one summer but his efforts were first discouraged by farmers with pitchforks who mistook him for a representative of the Government’s collectivization movement, and ultimately defeated by the KGB.”

“The KGB,” John stated flatly.

“Well, the AVO and the NKVD, but for all intents and purposes, yes, the KGB.” He realized that John was now grinning madly at him, for all the world as if he expected this to end with a punch line, that Sherlock was putting him on. That made him feel like laughing, for real this time, none of the hysteria-tinged laughter of the evening before, so he played it up a bit. “Yes. It was rather remarkable, actually, that he got as far as he did. We still have no idea how he acquired the phonograph, though we suspect he somehow managed to smuggle a bottle of single malt in with him. That probably would have done it,” he mused airily. “The Russians saved him from a deep disappointment, really. I’m not sure there were many villagers left to record. It must be one of the only instances in existence of a Secret Police Force doing someone a favour by taking him in for questioning.”

There was a general chuckle, and Richard said, “Poor old Forester. He almost looked cheerful.” He leaned back in his chair and pushed his plate to the side. “So, John, you’re a military man.”

John turned his gaze on this sturdy-looking older man with close-cropped brown hair. “Do all the Holmeses tend to deduct then?”

“Not at all; like recognizes like. Besides, I’m as far from a Holmes as you’ll find at this gathering.”

“Honorary uncle then?”

Mary had a bell-like laugh. “Not quite. Vi, Sherlock’s mother, is my sister.” John couldn’t quite reconcile this pretty, petite blonde who smiled at him cheerfully with the razor-edged woman who had pecked at Sherlock as if he were a cuckoo chick in her nest.

John pitched his voice for his friend’s ears alone. “Hang on, your father’s brother goes around telling people to ‘rock on’ and your mother has a cheerful sister? I have to say that when it comes to extremes on the sibling spectrum that is – well – extreme,” he finished lamely.

“Rocky and my Father are half-brothers, and Mary is my Mother’s step-sister.”

John considered that but couldn’t immediately come up with an opinion regarding nature versus nurture.

“They’re an entertaining lot to have tangentially married into. We don’t come down every year, but when we do it’s always a rousing time. Do you shoot, John? There’s good sport on Rocky’s land.”

Mary laughed and broke in helpfully, “Poor John, you must be all at sea. Sherlock’s never been one for explanations.” She looked around the room and patted her annoyed-looking husband’s knee soothingly. “Oh, there’s a good place to start. Rocky’s son Lionel has just come in with his wife Jean.” She indicated an older man with deeply creased jowls which gave him the hangdog aspect of a basset hound and a petite, trim woman sporting an attractive pixie cut of silver hair. “He spent some years as a coffee planter in Kenya and now he writes. Jean is retired.”

“And, of course, you may have noticed Rocky’s wife Madge last night; she was the elderly woman next to him wearing a red cowboy hat,” broke in Cousin Peter, who was a grinning Robert Redford look-a-like circa Out of Africa; John’s mother had loved that movie.

Ignoring the interruption, Mary went on blithely, pointing to a nearby table. “Jean’s daughter Judy is just there, sitting with her husband Alistair and their friend Sandy. Sandy’s husband doesn’t seem to be round. He’s very sporty, perhaps he runs or something in the mornings.” This table hosted an attractive brunette – Judy – an equally pretty blonde with hair cropped shorter than her friend’s – Sandy – and a tall skinny man in specs with hair going grey just a bit prematurely.

Richard finally cut in impatiently, “Now that we’ve untangled that, do you shoot, John? I’ll be getting together a party to go out tomorrow morning.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t usually do it for sport.”

“Come out with us anyway. We’ll be a jolly group and it’s sure to be better than whatever else is on this early. There hasn’t been enough time for resentment to build up yet.”

John glanced at Sherlock who shrugged and indicated the sheet music he had so recently acquired. “I will apparently be rehearsing each morning in the small library. Unless you’re planning on auditing that activity, suit yourself.” He paused thoughtfully. “Actually, do go. Bring me a bird; one of the large ones, a pheasant perhaps.”

“You want me to bring you back a dead bird,” John said flatly.

“Naturally.”

“Yes; naturally, of course.” John rolled his eyes at the sheer Sherlockian-ness of it all. “Fine. Just make sure to give me proper notice for the bit where you tutor the children in something.”

Sherlock laughed. “What do you think I want the bird for?” He waved away John’s shocked expression. “Yes, all right. You’ll be joining my science tutorial this year; duly noted. Will you also be participating in the lively debate which Mycroft will moderate wherein the gestational voting public of the Holmes family discuss transport, energy sources and digital communication as they relate to the future infrastructure of Britain?”

John blinked. “No, probably not,” he allowed.

Just then, a dour-looking woman dressed in a shapeless black dress walked into the middle of the room. She was carrying a baby and she cooed to it before she cleared her throat and announced to the room at large, “Good morning. Visibility is poor but the sea is moderate in the south North Sea and the Dover Strait. That is all.” She then walked over to the table which Mary had pointed out earlier and handed the baby off to Judy.

John grinned again, because at least portions of this were turning out to be as madly entertaining as he had expected. Ethnomusiwhatsis, indeed.

*****  
Musicke, and a Song.  
*****

After Claude had collected John for his sitting, Sherlock dutifully reported to the small library. He was perfectly content to have been summarily assigned this task as it saved him from being recruited for some other activity which would prove even less stimulating. At least he could easily lose himself in music despite the participation of three others. Bartók was sufficiently difficult to keep his mind occupied for the Duration.

He strode through the door but stopped dead the instant he was inside the formerly familiar room. The morning light was still suffused with jewel tones as the sun’s fire lit the magnificent stained-glass of the bay window, but that was the only element which remained from the last time he had been in the library on Boxing Day the year before he had fallen from the roof of Bart’s.

Sherlock had spent many hours of his life in this room and his mind automatically supplied what he had expected to see as an overlay to what actually met his gaze. Impatiently, he blinked it away; sentiment was useless and annoying. He surveyed the new furnishings with a bored eye and tried to work out how they would affect the acoustics which he had been used to.

There was still a thick Persian carpet covering the majority of the honey-wood floor; its pattern of twining ivy in stark national contrast to its predecessor’s interlocking fleur de lis. The heavy wooden furniture had been replaced by very similar pieces placed in almost the same orientation, but the new arrivals were all done in a slightly lighter style, giving the room an airier, feminine atmosphere. The room hadn’t been originally intended to serve as a library and so did not have the massive built-in bookcases which the library proper boasted, and the odd lot which had previously housed the overflow here had been similarly replaced; the new, matching set featured delicate scrollwork and stood on talon feet. Sherlock decided that the acoustics should prove acceptably similar.

He laid his violin’s case on the new table situated against the back of the new sofa nearest him and into his mind flashed a visual of himself situated under the old table which had once stood here; he had been six, and small enough to insert himself there and still have room to play his instrument. The sofa along one side had given the spot the feeling of a cosy fort. He had liked being able to play and remain hidden from the casual observer at the same time, imagining himself a sort of radio. He had carved his initials into the column of the table’s leg; he had carefully formed very tiny letters – SH – his secret in his hiding place. By the next year he had grown too tall to take up his spot; there had simply been too much leg to allow him to scrunch his limbs sufficiently to fit himself into the space.

He flicked the image away, but its aftereffect was to leave him feeling slightly tetchy and put out. This new table was longer, he would have fit under it for a few more years, but it wouldn’t have been as cosily snug that year he had been six.

There was a tentative knock on the open door, and a slim young woman with ash blonde hair done up in an untidy bun and a cello case strapped to her back stepped over the threshold. She pushed her glasses up her nose infinitesimally and looked up from what seemed to be a map sketched hastily on a napkin. Her gaze was questioning and she offered him a hopeful smile. When she spoke her voice proclaimed her to be American in origin. “Is this the small library? I was rather summarily ordered to report to the small library after I admitted to a familiarity with Bartók’s quartets.”

“You are in the correct place.” He didn’t admit the room its proper name, still feeling rebellious regarding its newly discovered table treachery. Almost lazily he added to American – newly married – recently honeymooned, in fact – professional musician – middle child of three, older sister, younger brother – mother drank – father died young. “Sherlock,” he offered with the extension of his hand.

“Shay,” she returned, her grip firm and sure.

“And which of my clan has recently walked you down the aisle then flown you to Tortola and back in celebration?” he drawled.

Behind her glasses, her eyes fluttered in confusion. “I – how did you know? You weren’t at the wedding. How did you know that?”

“Quite simple deductions, I assure you. Your engagement ring is familiar to you, your wedding band is not. You’re tanned though it is December and everyone goes to Tortola,” he finished with a roll of his eyes.

She eyed him sidelong. “That’s creepy, you know.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Her mouth twitched into a half-grin. “Okay, then, as long as you’re aware.” She pulled the strap of her case over her head and lowered it to the ground. “Marshall Holmes – I’m not sure how you’re related.”

“Ah, Marsh. He and I are second cousins.”

“Béla Bartók!”

Shay jumped at the sudden barking battle cry which Forester emitted as he strode into the room, followed by another man of similar age who was smiling fondly after his long-time partner, this second man was Sherlock’s honorary Uncle Carlton. Where Forester was grizzled and shaggy-looking with a beard and hair let to run wild, Carlton was trim and neat, dressed in khaki trousers and a cardigan over a shirt in a checked pattern. Each man carried an instrument case. Carlton raised a hand in greeting to Sherlock and nodded pleasantly to Shay as Forester ploughed heedlessly into the routine which was already familiar to the other two men in the room though not, presumably, to Shay. He began by declaiming his favourite poem. As he did, his voice rang with passion and filled the room with the true joy which can only be experienced by someone who has offered himself up completely as a disciple:

(He began quite modestly, his tone mild and grave, though ringing) “a bell, sunken in a mountain lake,  
which suddenly begins to ring,  
the pilgrim’s staff began to bloom,  
the flute that caused to sound  
whole orchestras

(Here he beat his breast dramatically, and Shay turned her head to hide a giggle.)

four spirits (He waved his hands in the air dramatically.) four otherworldly figures apparitions -  
violin in their hands and  
they play - do you understand? (He pleaded...)  
no! can you feel? (He demanded!)  
maybe; your cells,  
your hair, and your entrails  
understand  
the glass shriek of  
the violins’ throttled throat,  
the bloodless shadows of writhing willow trees,  
the magnetic rustle of the earth’s poles,  
the light signals of distant planets.

(Deep into his worship now, Forester was lost to the fact that he had any audience at all. He spoke tenderly to the ghost of Bartók.)

on their looms of glass  
four Fates spin  
the thread of your destiny -  
the sound stops.  
your life falls headlong  
like a soldier  
killed on a snowy peak.  
blood trickles  
from his invisible wound... (He crooned, no really, he managed to croon this bit. He’d had years of practice.)

the matterless matter  
grows screeching, fluttering dully  
it streams  
it dissolves your muscles  
your shinbones  
your skull. (He was flushed with passion by now, and his recitation had gained new heights. One could almost feel one’s shinbones dissolving in response.)  
your obsessions  
have been washed away by the waves -  
only your primal memories  
are still alive  
glittering, creeping, living blossoms:  
coral thickets sprouted  
underwater, on the chest of rocks,  
octopuses, squids,  
medusas  
and electric shock-giving  
stingrays, smooth as glass.”

Carlton was very carefully hiding the fond grin which this oft-repeated recitation had kindled. Sherlock reflected that few composers were capable of inspiring a single poem which contained references to both entrails and melting skulls.

Forester was still off and running, and he punctuated his enthusiasm with wild flailing of his arms. “The freshness of his melodic invention! The keen interest his rhythms provoke! The colourful qualities of his orchestration! The beauty of his compositional architecture! The deep expressiveness his music conveys! Bartók stands among the great figures of twentieth-century music!”

Sherlock decided to begin applauding politely, because that was usually the best way to stopper the flow of Bartók love. Next to him, he felt Shay shoot him a look before joining in; Carlton gave in to the laughter which had been building. In response to all this, Forester grumpily put his hands on his hips and humphed at them all emphatically, the light of worship in his eyes fading to irritation.

“Tune up!” he instructed shortly and pulled out a pitch pipe.

Each musician chose a chair then they arranged themselves into the traditional configuration. Instruments came out and settling-in rituals were performed before the actual tuning took place. Forester and Carlton had been playing together for uncounted years by now and Sherlock had joined them and occasionally others during this annual gathering. The air was easy with familiarity which Shay relaxed into easily as she proved to be quite an accomplished musician. And so, after a bit of mild fuss and just a little discordant warming up, Sherlock found himself between Forester on his right and Shay on his left as he arranged the parts for the second violin on the stand before him. Today they would be delving into Bartók’s fourth quartet.

They played through the first movement at a reduced tempo in order to allow Shay to begin to find her place in a grouping which was unfamiliar only to her. When they had finished, she nodded first thoughtfully, then more decisively to Forrester, and they began again, and this time they all focused on the music instead of fitting together as a group.

Bartók was eloquent, Sherlock thought, there was no doubt about it. The music spoke in a clear voice to those prepared to listen. The first thirteen measures plunged him back into the memory of that year he had been six and the screaming argument between his parents which had precipitated their leaving on Boxing Day.

The cello had been drunk and the maternal violin had been strung much too tightly, far beyond the instrument’s tolerance, tightly enough that its strings, running afoul of the cello’s razor-sharp disapproval were snapping, lashing painfully against anything within reach. The thirteen year-old viola had curled itself protectively around the six year-old violin and their screaming had been necessarily done inside their own heads; only adults had the privilege of giving free voice to their frustrations without consequences being visited upon them.

Sherlock forcibly jerked himself out of the memory. It was a new library, he reminded himself inanely. He felt unsettled for the rest of the rehearsal and made quite sure his mask was firmly in place to hide the inconvenient turmoil in his mind.

*****  
He Descends.  
*****

After Forester had released them, Sherlock went to the kitchens. “Mrs Bale. I wonder if you have any dead animals to spare.”

“I most certainly do not, Master Sherlock,” she replied in a disapproving tone. “With the house as full as this it’s all I can do to keep us in bacon without giving you a chicken to experiment on. Peter’s snares and the shoot can’t supplement any too soon!”

He resisted the urge to sigh. “Yes, I rather thought that would be the case. Never mind then.” He sulkily pushed through the door into the kitchen garden, thrusting his hands into his pockets as he followed the path onto the lawn. He was striding between the house and the potting shed when he was hailed from above.

“Sherlock! Just the man; do come up and give us a hand, this hive has been damaged.”

Looking up, he found Peter peering at him from the roof of the solarium which had been tacked onto the west wing of the house. The square, flat expanse of the roof had been utilized to house the estate’s beehives.

“The ladder is just there round the other side.”

Sherlock decided a short diversion would be of no consequence and ascended the ladder. As he did so, Mrs Bale’s words came back to him, and as he approached his cousin he asked, “Peter, have you snared any rabbits since you’ve arrived?”

“Not yet. I just need another hand – here – if you please.”

Sherlock obliged by holding the replacement board in place. “Would you hold back a handful for me once you have?”

Peter grinned at him, taking his eyes from the task at hand. “Risking the wrath of Mrs Bale so soon?”

“One of the many things I endure for the sake of science,” he replied drily.

“Of course I’ll set some aside. She’ll look at me that way she does, but I’ll just try to look daft and innocent. I don’t know how she knows these things, but she does. Right. That does it. Thanks for that. We’re lucky the weather has been mild or we may have lost this one.”

“It was no trouble.”

Peter rose from his crouch and gestured out at the grounds. “Rocky and Madge want to site a new garden, a proper walled affair, just beyond that dip,” Peter pointed into the distance. “I told them it may not be possible what with the stream; I’d run into a drainage issue straight away. I suggested they put it next to the maze instead. What do you think?”

Sherlock walked to the west edge of the roof to survey the first spot in question then proceeded to the southwest corner to view the second. Without thinking about it, he took a further half step so that his left foot rested on the parapet as he peered into the distance thoughtfully. “Yes, next to the maze would make more sense. Why had they settled on the other spot?”

“Some notion of Madge’s, something about a barbeque pit.”

On the ground, John and Claude were just cresting a hill as they made the final approach to the house. John had just remarked cheerfully that the weather was really very pleasant for December when they came into view of the house and his eyes were drawn up; to the figure of Sherlock, standing on the edge of the roof. His head reeled dizzily and his vision went grey; the bicycle sideswipes him and he goes down hard.

It plays like a black and white movie on a screen in front of him; he sees himself looking up at his friend; sees the unbridgeable space between them. Sherlock’s voice is both intimate and removed with only a digital tether connecting them; it caresses his ear while his own voice assaults with its ragged despair.

Okay, look up. I’m on the rooftop.

Oh God.

I ... I ... I can’t come down, so we’ll ... we’ll just have to do it like this.

A jump in the reel and John’s stomach rebels.

No, stay exactly where you are. Don’t move. Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?

Sherlock’s voice doesn’t plead like this; John will do anything, anything at all, to make it annoyed and sarcastic and – just – Sherlock again.

This phone call – it’s, um ... it’s my note. It’s what people do, don’t they – leave a note?

Leave a note when?

Goodbye, John.

No. Don’t.

No. SHERLOCK!

Sherlock raises his arms and plummets forward and John screams in wordless rage and pain, but it is only in his head because he hadn’t screamed. Everything lurches again sickeningly and he is no longer watching, he is fighting; he is fighting to get to Sherlock, because he is a good doctor and none of this is true it can’t possibly be true.

No, he’s my friend. He’s my friend. Please.

Please, let me just ...

The sound that fights its way out of his body is inhuman because this is Sherlock’s blood; Sherlock’s broken body; Sherlock’s wrist being torn from his hand.

Jesus, no.

God, no.

“Sherlock!”

Startled, Sherlock looked down to see his uncle curled protectively over – christ – John was on his hands and knees on the lawn, retching, and the realization of what he had seen which had caused this slammed into Sherlock’s body as if someone had swung a cricket bat into his stomach. He was moving before he made the decision to do so and took the ladder two rungs at a time; running flat out until he flung himself down at John’s side; babbling into his ear and gripping whatever part of him was to hand in an attempt to ground him.

“John! John, it’s all right. I’m all right, John, I’m right here.” Sherlock desperately wanted to haul his friend into his lap and embrace him with every bit of strength in his body, but John needed to be able to see him as soon as his eyes were once again admitting reality instead of nightmare; so instead, he pressed his forehead to John’s, and cupped his face in his hands. He kept up a steady monologue of reassuring rubbish, not knowing what he said in between the, ‘Johns’.

It seemed a very long time before these efforts gained some ground, but finally John’s body began to respond, relaxing by degrees until his eyes abruptly registered Sherlock’s intently staring into his own. Recognition was followed by a flicker of an emotion too raw to name and then his eyes closed as he groaned and dropped his head to the ground. His gasping breaths began to steady slightly, and suddenly his hand shot up and entangled itself in the shoulder of Sherlock’s shirt. He found himself yanked forward violently and then John was hugging him tightly. He returned the embrace firmly but not crushingly since his friend’s breathing was still uneven. After a while he began to hear his own words again and realized that what had been coming before and after each ‘John’ had become an endless litany of, “I’m sorry; I am so very sorry.”

This was only interrupted when he felt a warm huff of John’s breath on his ear. “Can we agree that, from now on, I’ll be handling any rooftop projects the partnership takes on?”

Sherlock’s eyes slid closed of their own accord and his voice was rough with emotion. “Yes. Yes, we are agreed on that.”

*****  
Exit Sergeant, attended.  
*****

At breakfast the next morning Sherlock was still fussing and hovering to the point that John felt the need to slap his hands away from his plate to keep him from cutting up his bacon.

“Ow!”

“Keep them to yourself then.”

Sherlock sniffed, offended, but was prevented from delivering a scathing retort by the arrival of his cousin, Simon, whose distinguishing feature these days seemed to be a luxurious moustache, accompanied by a girl who looked distinctly inclined to giggle at the least provocation – dog owner – only child – addicted to Mills and Boone novels – secretary – boring.

“Shooting with us today, Sherlock?” The inquiry was presented in a tone half mocking and half bored drawl, and for a moment he was tempted to simply stand up and walk away, but then he remembered that John had agreed to go on the shoot. He smiled, and for the next moment considered accompanying the party after all for a first-hand view of the fun, but decided John telling the story later would be even more entertaining because it wouldn’t involve his being in Simon’s presence all morning.

Affecting a drawl of his own, he responded, “I’m afraid not, rehearsals in the library, you know.”

Simon, who wouldn’t recognize a violin if someone knocked him round the head with a Stradivarius, made a noise which implied anything taking place in a library was too boring to warrant an actual word in response.

“John will be, though. Simon, Doctor John Watson; John, my cousin.” He remembered too late that John might no longer be interested in being part of a shooting party so soon after yesterday’s flashback and he turned an anxious gaze on his friend. Tentatively, he extended his hand until it rested on John’s sleeve and inclined his head slightly to say into his ear, “Unless you’d rather not.”

But John just turned an irritated look his way and said, “Gunfire isn’t going to viscerally remind me that you’re an annoying git, Sherlock.”

Right, it wasn’t anything other than Sherlock himself causing flashbacks these days. He winced internally at the reminder.

Simon had turned his attention to John and remarked, “I would have missed you at Eton I think.” His tone, which Sherlock reflected was really quite versatile these days, conveyed a satisfied expectation of being corrected.

“Yes, considering I didn’t attend Eton, you very definitely would have.”

“Oh. Harrow, then?”

Oh, Sherlock thought with a grin, John’s story was going to be very good indeed.

Eventually, John was glad he hadn’t punched Simon during the course of the morning. It did, however, take him quite a while to get to that point emotionally. After Richard had collected him and he had boggled appropriately at the contents of the gun room, he had spent some additional time boggling over the beauty of the Purdey side by sides he would be firing that day.

Aside from Richard, Simon and himself, the other guns turned out to be the men who had been pointed out as Lionel and Alistair, as well as a nervous-looking man John’s own age who was introduced as Harry, Sandy’s husband. Rounding out the group was a dapper young man answering to Marshall Holmes (call me Marsh), and somewhat surprisingly, Not Anthea. It quickly became clear that Harry looked nervous because he’d never shot game before.

“You’ll be fine, Harry, just remember to keep the rifle safe when you’re not shooting it,” Richard instructed him soothingly. “It’s not as if you’ll be refused dinner if you don’t bag anything. It’s just a friendly morning out, during which we happen to shoot up into the air occasionally. Relax!”

John himself had only been in the vicinity of a shoot on one occasion, but he was comfortable with the use of a rifle and aware of the format such an activity took. It wasn’t quite as simple as: shoot birds, not people, but it came damn close.

They set off for the first drive in a flurry of activity; the loaders, pick-uppers, and dogs all clearly keen to be out and active. John found himself walking between Richard and Simon. The younger man seemed to have decided that the day could only be improved by adding the sport of ‘annoying John’ to its slate of activities. It also didn’t help that his girlfriend was tagging along and giggling a lot. He couldn’t imagine what she found funny, because it abso-bloody-lutely couldn’t be Simon.

“What Club do you belong to, Doctor?”

The Keeping-Sherlock-Alive Club, he thought to himself. Instead of voicing this truism aloud he countered with, “What on earth do you actually do at a Club?”

Simon seemed startled by the question. “Do?”

“Mycroft belongs to a mad one that doesn’t let you talk. I assume at yours you do things rather than not do things, so what do you do?”

“Well, I read the papers and have a bit of a chat over a glass of scotch.”

“Dead boring, then, is it?” On his other side, Richard shook with suppressed laughter.

Thankfully, they came up to the first set of pegs just then and John managed to manoeuvre Richard between Simon and himself. This was just to be completely safe as the pegs were far enough from each other that the tosser would have been hard pressed to continue what apparently passed for conversation in his mind.

John didn’t begin shooting straight off when the first pheasants appeared over the trees which the pegs faced. Instead he took the opportunity to study the stance and technique the other, presumably more experienced, guns were employing. Not Anthea, he noted, reliably brought down everything she aimed at. As he had expected, he was able to easily adapt his own knowledge and he was soon bringing down birds.

The drive of pheasants was actually rather relaxing. The birds were slow in the air and the repetitive aiming, tracking and firing was hypnotic without the distraction of reloading. The rifles were a thing of beauty and he felt a bit as if he was performing an act of artistry in using them for their intended purpose.

After the last of the stragglers had trailed off, perhaps twenty minutes after the stream had begun, Richard came over and clapped him on the back heartily. “You’re a damned good shot, John, it’s a pleasure to watch you in action.”

“Oh, thanks. These rifles are gorgeous, just completely bloody gorgeous.”

“Glad you’re enjoying them.” He looked like he was about to go on, but he was interrupted by the arrival of Simon, who looked fit to burst.

“How many birds did you take, Doctor?”

The giggly girl piped in, “Simon shot down at least fifteen!”

John blinked. “Sorry, I’ve got no idea.”

“Yes, and it’s not important,” Richard added tetchily. “And, Simon, put yourself at the opposite end from Harry at the next drive, you were picking off all the easy ones that he might have had a chance at.”

John hid a grin by turning away to hand the rifle to his loader. That did seem to be something Simon would do, pick off the easy targets to increase his count. Where was the sport in that?

As they walked to the next set of pegs, Not Anthea was suddenly at his side. “The next drive is partridge. They’re speedier than the pheasants. Would you like to have some fun with the tosser?”

“What? Sorry?”

“The moustachioed twat, he won’t be able to handle the partridge anyway, but do you want to see him go completely berserk?”

Catching on, John grinned again. “Love to.”

“Force him to the far left but one and we’ll flank him.”

“And then?”

She smiled sweetly. “And then we’ll shoot all the birds, of course.”

And they did. It was bloody brilliant.

Simon was so angry that he very imprudently dropped his (bloody gorgeous antique [the complete and utter tosser]) rifle in a fit of temper, then began to shriek and hop about like the proverbial March hare attempting to mate with the proverbial box of frogs. John didn’t even register the report of the gun going off until after he’d begun this bizarre and fascinating behaviour.

Oh, christ, the idiotic twat had shot himself in the foot. Without thinking past this John swung into action.

*****  
Musicke and a Song. Blacke Spirits, &c.  
*****

It wasn’t until they switched to the second quartet that Sherlock lost himself completely. His brain wrapped itself around the first movement as if it were a mystery to be solved. The decided and early development of the motive only emphasized the loss of it which came later – the complete inability to regain that exquisite progression of chords which was so thrilling and which became so completely lost to him. The music forced him to watch it mutate and become unrecognizable; forced him to chase after it with despair the only possible outcome.

As the mood turned inevitably from passionate to haunting and the harmonies took on a distinctly acidic quality, Sherlock began an accelerando which took them into a sea wrecked with agitation, surrounded by swirling, throbbing crescendos and diminuendos. Sherlock was reaching for all he was worth for that lost motive; surely if he, if all of them played the notes and chords with the greatest of precision and with the amount of passion and belief that the music demanded, that Bartók demanded, somehow the score would change and somehow the notes would dance into that elusive –that lost forever – motive.

The music was brutal in its denial of Sherlock’s need. At moments it deigned to tenderly acknowledge the bittersweet pain he could taste choking him at the back of his throat, but it didn’t hesitate to taunt him cruelly with jagged variations on the succession of notes which he needed so very much to reassemble. A grotesque variation, a simplified variation, an exaggerated variation, and none of them satisfied the pull, the desperate longing pull of desire and despair that roiled inside of him.

Suddenly, the seed of music exploded into full growth, roots and branches brutally ripping through Sherlock’s heart in the process. The tapestry of jewel tones which danced in the air around him solidified into a dizzying mosaic of the emotions which he had been burying so carefully. Rage was pulsing orange and pain was sky blue; fear was purple and despair was searing red. The colours danced and swirled around him in a kaleidoscope of hopelessness.

He had been wrenched from his home – no, had wrenched himself and had only himself to blame. He had broken John; he had smashed their home to pieces and had so far only been able to erect some sort of shaky lean-to from the resulting carnage, and John was still suffering right along with him.

Sherlock’s violin wept.

Sherlock’s brain circled in on itself.

*****  
Exeunt.  
Alarums continued.  
*****

After he had Simon sorted and off to A&E, and after the third drive which had been delayed for him, John gleefully went to hunt up Sherlock and relate the events of what had turned out to be a thoroughly entertaining morning; also, to deliver the requested bird, which he’d had to smuggle out under his coat in a near thing when Mrs Bale had unexpectedly swept up the bounty of the day upon their arrival at the house. After startling the occupants of several rooms by popping his head in and brandishing a dead pheasant (just because it was fun, really) he succeeded in his goal and found, judging by the bookcases and music stands, that Sherlock was still occupying the small library; in fact he was still playing. His eyes were closed and he was swaying slightly as if he were a very slender young tree in a light breeze.

John slung the bird onto a table and sat down to listen. He quite liked it when the pieces Sherlock played were reasonable to the ear; this one qualified, though barely. When his friend finally played one last abrupt note and then looked as if he might put his bow down; John, because he was quite eager to tell his story, chanced interrupting. “Your cousin is a twat, but he’s extremely entertaining when he’s been shot.”

Sherlock started, and John frowned. He hadn’t taken closed eyes as an indication that Sherlock was unaware of his presence. Sherlock was preternaturally aware of his surroundings at all times; unless he had been drugged, of course. He was further surprised when his friend showed no inclination to abuse Simon – and surely he’d caught the fact that the twat had got himself shot?

“John.”

“Yes, that would be me.”

“You’re all right?”

“Well, yeah, I’m fine. It’s your tit of a cousin who’s a bit worse for wear.” John gleefully gathered himself to jump into the telling of his tale. He was going to make it really good and he’d already worked out how to convey the noise the twat had made when he’d pulled his boot off, but Sherlock immediately drifted off; he could see it in his eyes, he’d gone off into his own mind and wouldn’t be coming out to play any time soon.

“Good,” he murmured, one last concession to the outside world, before putting bow back to strings and beginning to play again.

Oh come on, John thought, this was a great story! Was he seriously being forced to wait to tell it? But it seemed he was, and when the notes issuing from the violin took a dangerous turn toward discordant John stood up with a huff and informed his unhearing friend, “Your bird is on the table,” before leaving the room.

Consequently, John wasn’t at all surprised when Sherlock did not make an appearance at dinner. He chatted happily enough with Alistair and Judy over the meal. It turned out that Alistair ran a publishing company and once he realized who John was he put into motion some serious courting action designed to get him to sign a contract. John was a little startled at this, he didn’t really think of himself as a writer as such; he was simply Sherlock’s blogger. Judy noticed right away that he was uncomfortable with the thought and after a few heavy hints from her he felt a little less like Alistair was trying to put a hand up his skirt.

After dinner, he had the bad luck of catching the eye of Viola who, apparently, was now playing the role of doting future mother-in-law.

“John! Darling!”

Upon hearing this exclamation, Alistair and Judy scattered very much as his men would have done under enemy fire. He considered the trade a piss poor one despite that lingering, amorous glint in Alistair’s eye.

He was then treated to the same aggressive darting motion which the woman had performed on her son upon her arrival, followed by the same subsequent failure to make actual physical contact. Being on the receiving end of this action was almost less pleasant than being a witness to its infliction upon his friend.

“Erm – hello – Mrs Holmes.”

“Dinner was lovely, wasn’t it? Just scrumptious.”

He wasn’t even surprised at this point that there was no mention of the fact that the last time he’d seen her she’d been verbally attacking her immediate family. All of that so very obviously belonged behind closed doors with this lot. “Yes, very nice indeed.”

She then somehow managed to flutter in such a way that he found himself being herded toward a sofa – still without the woman actually touching him. Honestly, if he hadn’t been so alarmed at the thought of her parenting a child he would have found it dead fascinating to observe how she interacted, or rather didn’t interact, with people. As it was, the thought that she had been in charge of the emotional well-being of someone he cared about a great deal was truly disturbing. This thought reminded him that he needed to get in his hug for the day before going to bed.

Now that she had him cornered, she seemed unsure what to do with him. She was simply staring at him expectantly. It occurred to John that she must have been much the same way with her sons. He imagined that she had made a habit of calling for them, thrusting sweets into their hands, and then expecting them to entertain her somehow. He did not feel inclined to entertain this appalling woman.

They were both rescued by the unexpected appearance of Not Anthea. “Mrs Holmes, your husband is requesting your presence in the solarium.”

He saw a flash of annoyance flit across her face before she rose and nodded a very cold farewell in his direction.

Not Anthea’s face shifted from bored neutrality to distinct distaste as they watched Viola leave the room. She turned to John and said, “Mycroft would like a word.” Without waiting for an acknowledgement, she turned and walked toward the door. John considered not following, but decided that Sherlock’s brother might actually be just the person he needed to speak to. The PA led the way to a much smaller study than the one in which the Holmeses had done battle the night before. Here he found Mycroft ensconced in a wing chair, all his usual smug Mycroftian elegance working overtime, in front of a fire with a snifter of something honey-gold and most certainly priceless cradled in his palm.

“Thank you very much indeed. You are the very embodiment of a white knight,” he whimsically informed his assistant.

John almost asked, but then decided that if Mycroft could pinpoint his and Sherlock’s exact location within the city of London, knowing that his mother had kidnapped him when they were all attending the same house party was child’s play.

Not Anthea curled herself into the chair which stood at a slight angle to the one her boss was occupying, leaving the one facing him to John.

“Do sit, John. Pour yourself a drink if you are so inclined and tell me how you are faring in this eccentricity of Holmeses. I understand you performed quite a valuable service for young Simon this morning.”

John snorted as he poured himself a glass of liquefied wealth. “Young Simon is an irritating git and I should have let him bleed more than I did.”

“Yes, he is rather insufferable. He always has been, actually. He and Sherlock used to lie in wait for one another with loaded slingshots.”

“Now that almost makes me feel badly for Simon because Sherlock’s a crack shot.”

“Perhaps the many head injuries added to his personality deficiencies.”

John let out a soft breath of laughter and regarded his whisky. “Mycroft -,” he began but stopped uncertainly.

“If it has occurred to you to think it, it very likely took place.”

John winced, because the things which he had been thinking involved more than just the verbal abuse he had witnessed first-hand.

“As we have discussed before, you are a very accurate judge of danger.”

“Right,” he offered weakly.

There wasn’t much conversation after that. John’s mind was swirling with dark, disturbing thoughts; Mycroft and Not Anthea’s light banter barely penetrated.

The small library was the first room he checked for Sherlock on his way up to bed. As he had fully expected, he was still there and still playing, the notes he was producing gone jagged and shrieking. John walked up to him and firmly tapped him on the shoulder. The music died with an abrupt screech and startled eyes blinked a few times before he was sure his friend registered his presence even vaguely.

“Come here, then.” He embraced him firmly but Sherlock’s arms flapped awkwardly in the air, each of his hands still in possession of a musical tool. “Good night, Sherlock.” John released him and picked up the dead bird on his way up to bed. He hung it out the window since he knew if he took it down for proper refrigeration it would be confiscated.

*****  
Enter Lady.  
*****

Back in the study she let out a throaty laugh; the sound of it was rolling and velvety rough like a whirlpool of coarsely ground coffee beans. “In his head John calls me ‘Not Anthea’.”

His eyebrows shot up in pure amusement. “And why would he do that? Who on earth is Anthea?”

“Anthea,” she confided, “doesn’t exist; and he does it because I wanted him to, of course.”

“Your sense of humour continues to baffle me.”

“It doesn’t actually, you know. It amuses you terribly.” Thoughtfully, she noted that the Sherlock wrinkle between her boss’s eyes had deepened; in response, her tone sobered. “He’s good with a gun, almost as good as I am. He’s also good with wounds; he had it bound up instantly, and the twat didn’t make it easy for him. You don’t need to worry as much as you do.”

He relaxed infinitesimally; only she would have noticed. “Yes. Well.”

She hesitated only slightly. “You’re sad. Why?”

The answer was very slow in coming. She waited patiently. “I was his shield for a very long time.” There was another, even longer pause. “It turns out that he was much more in need of a gun.”

She answered carefully, “A shield, by its very nature, takes quite a lot of damage when it goes into battle. It is a very intimate tool; the soldier feels every blow the shield takes, and those blows bruise even if they do not kill. A gun is simpler, and much more detached from the violence it is defending against.”

“No one ever told me to protect him, isn’t that odd? Isn’t that what elder brothers are usually instructed to do?”

One corner of her mouth quirked up in a wry smile. “You took on an impossible task without anyone asking you to do so. I am utterly shocked,” she returned drily.

He got that look which meant he was playing at being all huffily offended, but she was already sorry that she had met that particular revelation with a jest, so she held up her hand to stop him setting the conversation back to banter by way of mock indignation. “No sane adult would have tasked a child, no matter how intelligent or unique, with protecting someone from your parents, Mycroft.” She grimaced darkly. “And if one had, he should at least have issued you body armour and a rocket launcher.”

He smiled at her archly. “Can you imagine my seven-year-old self with a rocket launcher? You’ve heard what I was capable of without any weaponry at all.”

“Standard weaponry,” she reminded him. “You did build yourself more than one explosive device.”

He tutted at her, mock fretfully. “Yes, but Sherlock was the one who set each of them off.”

“Just as you planned he would,” she countered.

Suddenly, Mycroft laughed; he threw his head back and laughed heartily, startling her terribly. He never laughed like that. “Did you see the look on John’s face?”

She blinked at him.

“The other night - when he tackled Sherlock to the ground,” he elaborated, his laughter trailing off, but still colouring his tone amused. “He was horrified, and Sherlock just looked bored.”

As someone who had frequently felt the urge to protectively tackle the elder Holmes brother to the ground when the Holmes parents were in the same room, she let that pass without comment.

“Tell me about the rehearsals,” he said, changing the subject.

She rather wished she didn’t know that Mycroft Holmes could be made to laugh heartily; she now wanted to make him do it again because of something she had said. She had, of course, learned long ago that a combination of witty banter, smoky eyes and the knowledge that she was good with a crossbow could get her pretty much anything she wanted, but she wondered if this mightn’t be a bit beyond that.


	3. Act III

*****  
Actus Tertius.

JOHN (into phone): Looks like he’s clean. We’ve tried all the usual places. Are you sure tonight’s a danger night?  
MYCROFT: No, but then I never am. You have to stay with him, John.

A bell rings.  
*****

After John had dressed the next morning the expected rap of Sherlock’s knock did not come. He gave it an extra ten minutes, then the disturbed feeling which had been growing in the pit of his stomach over the last days finally took over completely. He rapped sharply on Sherlock’s door. There was no answer. He rapidly strode off in the direction of the small library, and as he made his way down the hallway received confirmation in the form of the strains of what might possibly be deemed music (by someone with very odd standards) still emitting from the room. He slowed his pace, considering his options. He stopped short of the doorway, tapped his foot thoughtfully, then turned smartly on his heel and rapidly set off back the way he had come.

Sherlock was roused from an ever-deepening spiral of red dots dancing exploding running shouting death gun pain fear sharp grating burn the heart out of you grating sharp fear pain gun death shouting running exploding red dots dancing burn the heart out of you by the simple expedient of John slapping him across the face.

He looked up at him, startled and annoyed. “Really, John, was that actually necessary?”

“As I’ve been calling your name directly into your ear for ten minutes, yes, it was.”

Sherlock blinked. Oh.

John gently but resolutely took away his violin and his bow, then pushed firmly against his chest to topple him into a chair. He then thrust a plate containing eggs with soldiers into his hands and ordered, “Eat.”

Sherlock blinked at the food. One egg had already been cracked open and was being cradled by a little ceramic castle turret. The soldiers stood at attention in a line, riding on the back of a miniature horse.

“Eat it, Sherlock, I’m serious.” And he was; Sherlock recognized his ‘I’m serious’ voice, it was a near variant of his officer’s command bark.

Slowly, he began to eat. When he had finally cleared the plate he looked back up at John, who was leaning toward him and staring at him intently. Sherlock wondered idly if the force of his friend’s gaze alone had actually caused him to eat. He picked up the little ceramic horse and turned it over in his hands, tracing its edges and flicking crumbs onto the plate.

“Your father is a bully.”

Sherlock nodded once, jerkily.

“And your mother – jesus – has she ever actually touched you? If she did, did it hurt? Does her touch actually break the skin?”

Sherlock’s mouth quirked into a smile. “Likely not, it never injured any of the dogs.”

He apparently decided that in this case stating the obvious was necessary. “Neither of them is going to hurt you while I’m around.”

His felt his smile shift from sardonic to fond. “No, of course not,” he sighed. “Do be careful of yourself, though.”

John looked puzzled. “Why? I doubt your father’s going to haul off and belt me one for no good reason; I get the impression he saves that for people who are smaller than him. Oh, christ, does he have a stash of grenades or something? Honestly, if people are handing that man firearms there’s something wrong with them.”

“Not him, me,”

John only looked more puzzled.

“I’m dangerous too. You know that from experience,” Sherlock insisted.

“You’re – going to have to be clearer. What are you on about?”

“Jesus, John.” He shot up and paced across the room, his body demanding movement. “I – I hurt you. I hurt you unbearably. I – I traumatized you.”

“This is about the flashback? Sherlock, that wasn’t your fault.”

“Of course it was; it is also my fault that you spent nearly three years uselessly grieving; and somehow it is even my fault that this room has been completely changed!” John watched as his partner waved his arms wildly at the neatly furnished, inoffensive, actually quite pretty room they were occupying, then pointed accusingly at a perfectly innocent-looking table which lived against the back of the sofa and announced bitterly, “Because that is not my table.”

“Right.” He decided to address the greater issue at hand and, for the moment at least, leave the table out of it. “You do realize I’ve forgiven you for saving my life, yes? Along with Mrs Hudson’s and Lestrade’s.”

Sherlock sank into a chair, suddenly drained of energy and looking alarmingly lost. “You can’t possibly have done, it was unforgivable of me not to have sent you some word. Besides, you hardly let me out of your sight now; you follow me around the flat as if you don’t even realize you’re doing it.”

John hadn’t realized he did that; did he do that?

“Why do you actually think you decided to spend two weeks here with my family, John? It’s because you don’t trust me to come back,” Sherlock finished bitterly.

No, that wasn’t right; he was over that feeling, really he was. Wasn’t he?

Just as suddenly as he had wilted, he sprang up again wildly. “Moriarty! John I swear to you, if I could get my hands on him I would make him feel all of your pain, all of our pain, and more. I would make him hurt. I would make him grieve. I would carve your name into his skin and then flay it open,” he finished, practically hissing.

“Would you cut out his heart with a spoon after?” Sherlock, in his frenzy, missed John’s sarcastic tone.

“Yes! That’s actually a very good idea. I could show him what a burning heart looks like!”

John let out a sharp bark of laughter, because Sherlock telling him he’d had a good idea was so rare an occurrence, but in this case he was so completely wrong himself. He dug deep for the grounding practicality that his friend needed right now. “Dig out the dead man’s heart with a spoon and set it on fire. Oh, yes, that’s a very good plan; it’s very practical and would completely be worth all the effort.” Sherlock was regarding him uncertainly now. “Look, none of that would help,” he told him gently. “What’s done is done and we need to move forward. You’ve got me well and truly worried now; I can see that this breakdown you’re having is quite layered. To start with, you need to pull out of this spiral, Sherlock, and you need to do it right now. Do we need to leave here for you to do that? Because we can go home.”

Sherlock blinked at how easy he made it sound. We can go home, as simple as that; as if Sherlock hadn’t wilfully thrust home, and John himself, away from him with both hands, breaking his best friend into pieces as a result. His energy deserted him again and he sank once more, this time just catching the edge of a sofa. His voice was heavy with despair and an unspeakable weariness. “John, I don’t even know where home is.”

His reply was firm and came without any hesitation, “Baker Street. Home is 221B Baker Street. We can go home right now if that’s what you want to do.”

Sherlock, having drained himself completely, was finally at a point where this information could be taken in and his brain could begin to process it. Because he wanted to be told he was wrong, he said, “It cannot possibly be that easy.”

John told him gently, “That’s what home is, you nutter. It’s easy; it’s harder to lose than you seem to think; and in your case it’s me and it’s Baker Street and it’s Mrs Hudson and it’s even Molly and bloody Greg since you don’t seem to have noticed that.”

John hesitated now, not wanting to lie to his friend even if he did it thinking what he said was true. But while he might still worry about Sherlock, that was nothing new. He had always worried about Sherlock. You couldn’t help worrying about Sherlock if you cared about him at all. But he very definitely wasn’t worried that he might leave again, and he knew that Sherlock had suffered just as much during his absence as John had. Yes, he decided, worried and possibly traumatized by rooftop shenanigans, but not angry. “And I have forgiven you, honestly, though I see now you haven’t forgiven yourself. Work on that for me, eh?”

And hearing him say it helped; it helped quite a lot, actually, because John’s saying it out loud made it real. If John believed that his and Sherlock’s home was Baker Street then it must still be true on some level. Even if Sherlock had knocked over the blocks comprising the actual structure, the underlying foundation remained intact and the lean-to they were occupying while they got on with the new construction was only temporary. He had come home, and he had been forgiven. His brain took in this new idea like a grain of sand and began to worry at it, already working at adding layers so that the resulting pearl would eventually be magnificent enough to warrant prominent display in his mind palace.

He took a deep breath. “We should stay.”

John looked at him doubtfully.

“No, it’s fine.” Sherlock said it lightly, but he meant it. “Grandmère still wants to hear about our adventures and you were looking forward to my science lab. Also, you shouldn’t miss the Production, it is quite the highlight of the gathering. Besides,” he added, making the realization as he spoke, “home isn’t going anywhere without us.”

This cleared John’s mind of the best part of his doubt and he smiled, pleased that he had managed to teach Sherlock something. “Hm. Well that’s good, I wouldn’t want to deny Claude his opportunity to paint my portrait. He requested a second sitting.”

Suddenly recalling a certain proclivity of his uncle’s, Sherlock smiled. “Did he try to get you to pose in the nude?”

“Disturbingly, yes.”

“Oh, John, tell me you didn’t refuse! It’s just what we need over the mantel! What home is complete without a nude portrait of John Watson?”

“We compromised on shirtless.”

They giggled over this until the rest of the quartet arrived.

As he got up to leave, John used his ‘pulling rank’ voice and informed him, “This afternoon you’re sleeping if I have to pin you down myself.”

That started Sherlock giggling again, and Shay’s eyebrows shot up, but Carlton and Forester just looked pleased. They had noticed young Sherlock had been out of sorts and it was nice to see that the Good Doctor really did know how to take proper care of him.

His utterances still punctuated by giggles, Sherlock managed, “While shirtless, John? On my bed? What will people say?”

John rolled his eyes. “As we’re now engaged, I imagine they’ll think of all sorts of things to say, but they’d be hard-pressed to find anything new.”

“Oh! That’s right, I’d forgotten!” He earnestly insisted, “Then you should definitely sit on me in public, it’s perfectly appropriate now.”

John shook his finger threateningly. “Behave yourself, or I won’t tell you the bedtime story of how Simon shot himself in the foot.” He left Sherlock not just giggling, but howling with laughter. Mission accomplished, he thought as he walked away, then turned his focus to how much assault he could visit upon Sherlock’s father before the charges would definitely hold up.

*****  
Enter Lady, reading a letter.  
*****

She began to watch her boss more carefully, trying to suss out the best way to go about – whatever it was this was that she was going about. And that, right there, the fact that with one bout of laughter he had reduced her to forming sentences which didn’t make any sense at all, was why she was so put out by all of this.

They weren’t exactly friends, but they weren’t exactly co-workers either, and it had been years since he’d bothered to put on his public face when it was just the two of them. She knew more about him than she knew about anyone else in the world, parents and siblings included. She knew that he thought civilization was going to hell in a handcart and to him the casual erosion of polite manners was an evil greater than any he sparred with on a daily basis, nuclear weapons or no. She knew that he absolutely could not stand people who spent their time faffing about and dithering instead of getting things done. She knew just the way he would wrinkle his nose slightly before picking the tomatoes out of – well – anything at all, he despised them. She knew that when he really needed to relax he packed her into the DB5, put the top down and raced down country lanes at speeds which would have put his father’s shenanigans to shame. And now she knew that sometimes, very rarely, he could be made to laugh as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

The problem was that despite everything she did know about him, she had a complete lack of information regarding the more specific situation in which she now found herself. You see, she perfectly understood that it would be difficult to laugh like you meant it when you were considering how many innocents were also going to end up dead because of a necessary action you’d taken. Therefore, she had to capture his attention and hold it; make him see nothing but her and forget about everything else; then she’d see about getting him to laugh again. Of course she had seen plenty of situations draw Mycroft Holmes’s complete attention, and that intense focus was something to behold; the thought of it being aimed at her made her shiver (and she wasn’t the shivering type).

People, though, were a different story. Mycroft Holmes danced around people with the greatest of ease; he played them as if they were a board game (not chess, most people weren’t that intelligent; whilst England was chess, her citizens were only draughts). She had yet to see a single person engage her boss’s interest beyond the superficial; his brother was the exception which proved the rule, though despite his best efforts Mycroft would never understand Sherlock. Holmes Minor was simply an enigma wrapped in a shiny black coating which maddeningly deflected and reflected, making the man himself totally invisible unless you were Doctor John H. Watson.

And so, she wondered, what was a girl to do? Even a girl who can wittily banter with the best of them, a girl who need only flutter her eyelashes to attract a dozen men to her side, a girl who is very good with a crossbow, had so far failed to engage him beyond his appreciation for her professional skills. Still, until now she hadn’t really been trying.

*****  
Flourish.  
*****

The next morning, John knocked Sherlock up with the dawn. “Come on, we’re going on Peter’s nature walk.” He had decided to take an active role in making sure his friend remained occupied and in the presence of his more congenial relations.

A yawning Sherlock had begun a protest of sorts, but then, very suspiciously, turned all excited and bright-eyed and shoved John out of the room so he could get dressed.

After tea and toast, they found themselves on the lawn with Peter and a group of roughly a dozen children varying in age from early teens down to ‘am I going to end up carrying that one on the way home?’, as well as a matched set of golden-haired triplets that made John’s jaw drop. They were gorgeous, but unfortunately a few years too young to make chatting them up an option. He was getting increasingly aware of the creaky bits his body was developing and these girls were firmly on the wrong side of twenty-five for him at this stage. Unfortunately, at least one of them didn’t seem to be on the same page; the one dressed in a pink shirt and jeans (there really didn’t seem to be any way to tell them apart other than by their clothing) was eyeing him with interest and after Peter had instructed everyone to stay together (then passed out whistles in case that hadn’t worked) she sidled up to him.

“Morning, Sherlock. Hullo. I’m Angie.”

“Nice to meet you, Angie, I’m John. These are your sisters?” He gestured to the other two of her.

“This is John,” she announced to them as they all began walking forward, tailing the children who followed Peter as if he had a magical pipe. “Ashley” (yellow jumper paired unwisely for this activity with a skirt, he noted) “and Ainslie.” (also jeans, but a blue shirt).

“It’s nice to meet all of you. It’s a nice morning, yeah?”

They sounded a chorus of agreement.

“And how are you related to Sherlock?” A glance at his friend showed him to be studying the ground over which they were walking with considerably more attention than he was devoting to monitoring whether or not he was about to walk into a bush. John sighed and veered a little closer so that he could steer him round obstacles if necessary. This caused him to miss most of the reply which contained such familiar words as cousin and aunt, but he decided not to worry about it; it wasn’t as if it actually mattered, after all.

They walked companionably for a while, Angie burbling away. It seemed she was in the play, and she was full of gossip about everyone involved in it. Once they were clear of the grounds proper, the landscape opened up, and John’s concern that Sherlock might brain himself on a beech tree faded a bit. He shifted the majority of his attention to Angie who, while too young to tempt him with her flirting, was at least a good storyteller.

After they’d been walking for about ten minutes, Peter turned and announced to the group at large, “All right, everyone, do a bit of shouting now as we go, just anything which comes to mind, and we should get a treat.”

John looked around, confused. They were in the middle of a grassy hill midway to the woods they were ultimately headed for. He couldn’t see any possible reason to start randomly shouting. Then he realized that Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. “Oh, for the love of -,” He spun round in a circle, scanning the area for his partner. Around him, the children were whooping merrily. Annoyed, John strode away from the group and shouted, “Sherlock! Sher – lock!” Then he realized what he was doing. He was chasing down his friend because he unexpectedly couldn’t see him. Bloody hell, he’d been right, the bastard. John stopped abruptly and yelled once more out of absolute frustration with both himself and The Flatmate Who Knew Absolutely Bloody All, “Sherlock!”. As if by magic, a whirlwind of swirling air which battered his senses was the only warning as a pair of enormous chickens (!?) swooped in and landed practically at his feet.

“Bloody hell!” yelped John as the birds bounced down in front of him and cocked their heads, looking at him expectantly. Red Kites, his brain supplied belatedly, there’d been plenty of articles about the Chilterns and the birds over the last decade. He stumbled back and realized that his two were off the mark; a short distance away Peter and the children were happily throwing bits of something to a score of their fellow feathered friends. Regaining his equilibrium, John put his hands on his hips and retook control, asking the birds testily, “Do you both answer to Sherlock, then, or is one of you Sher and the other Lock?” As was normal when dealing with the human Sherlock, no verbal answer was forthcoming. “Shoo.” he tried, waving them off toward the others. His new friends regarded him skeptically, and more than a bit hungrily.

To add insult to injury, non-avian Sherlock then reappeared, shuffling along with his eyes still trained on the ground, having apparently simply lagged behind. John closed his eyes and counted to thirty before trusting himself not to explode at him. It wasn’t Sherlock’s fault that his brain had developed some sort of Sherlock proximity addiction. He needed to work on this, clearly; he couldn’t be dogging his friend’s steps for the rest of their days.

By the time he opened his eyes again, Sher and Lock had moved on to meatier pastures and Peter was telling the children, “...and it worked so well here that for a few years we took chicks from nests on your Uncle Rocky’s land and sent them to other places in England so that they can keep making more new homes and new baby kites.”

Once the kites had swooped and torn their way through the supply of dead rabbit parts, they were on their way again. Angie re-established herself at John’s side. A bit later, after they’d entered the wooded area, John realized that Sherlock possessed something akin to radar. He had just successfully navigated the better part of a mile without once looking up, and he was now skilfully weaving between trees as if each was somehow warning him off. Occasionally John had caught him slipping something into his pocket, but he hadn’t run into anything and he hadn’t needed any actual steering. Finally satisfied that he was fairly safe from giving himself concussion, he let him wander from the group, keeping up with his general location but deliberately allowing him out of his actual line of sight.

They had walked a little further and John was simply enjoying the nice weather and the nice outdoorsy scents in the fresh air while trying to gently discourage Angie from sticking to his side like a burr when suddenly, he realized that Peter was subtly motioning to the group for quiet. When everyone had hushed accordingly and the only sound came from the faint rustling of Sherlock off a little distance, he pointed very carefully into the underbrush and John realized there was a deer watching their group from inside a bush. Granted, it was eyeing them warily, and looked likely to bolt, but so far hadn’t. It seemed rather reassured once silence had been established and held for a handful of seconds.

It was a doe with beautiful soft brown eyes, and when she shifted slightly John realized that she had a fawn with her. The mother nuzzled her baby and, remembering Viola’s alarming darting motions toward her son, John’s heart broke for Sherlock all over again; as physically impossible as he knew it to be, he honestly felt it may have just cracked in two inside his chest.

To the delight of the children, who were now all crouched near to the ground in imitation of Peter, the naturalist pulled something from his pack and there was the crinkle of a wrapper - it was a cereal bar of some sort, John realized - then crept toward the deer and laid half the bar on the ground. He then retreated a step and a half and waited in complete and utter stillness. After what seemed an eternity, the doe stepped forward tentatively. Her fawn danced in place and one of the children stifled a gasp. The deer took another few steps, then lowered her head and extended her neck to sniff delicately at the offering. She lipped at the treat experimentally, then suddenly dug in, taking another step toward it so she was no longer having to stretch her neck. She was now within Peter’s reach, but he remained completely still.

When she had finished off the initial offering, she looked at her new benefactor expectantly, and John had to stifle a laugh because she was so clearly demanding, ‘Well? Got any more of that on you? Hand it over if you do.’ Very slowly, Peter palmed the other half of the bar then slowly, ever so slowly, he raised his hand into the air. The doe took a step back. He stopped moving. She settled again, and reached out to assure herself that her nose did in fact detect the presence of the implied treat and then held still, clearly considering her options. She was motionless for a long moment. Then she took two steps and began to eat from Peter’s hand.

The kids were all completely charmed, right along with John himself; but then the fawn decided that he or she would have a bit of a look in now that mum had checked it out first, and there was no stifling the outbreak of hushed, delighted, ‘oh!’s as he consequently danced right in front of the group of crouching children. The little guy stopped stock still and stared at them as if just noticing them for the first time.

“It’s okay, little one. Just settle like your mum, now, and we’ll see if you like this treat as much as she does.” Peter’s voice was low and soothing and the baby instantly responded to it, visibly relaxing. John was reminded of Sherlock’s dulcet apologies after his flashback the day after their arrival, and his own gentle, practical assurances the day before. The fawn glanced sidelong at the children, but resumed his dancing steps and moved to his mother’s flank.

It was simply miraculous what Peter was able to accomplish with soothing words and a few more of the bars. Each of the children was even able to creep close, one at a time, and stroke the fawn or the doe gently. When they had all had a turn, Peter motioned to the triplets and they proceeded to do the same. He then caught John’s eye and quirked a questioning eyebrow. John was a little startled. He was a lot bigger than the kids and the thought of frightening either of these creatures was offensive to him in the extreme. He shook his head nervously, but Peter’s eyes went soft and he smiled encouragingly, tipping his head in a ‘come on, they won’t bite’ sort of gesture. So, reluctantly, and extremely slowly, John lowered himself into a crouch, then lay down on the ground in order to commence a slow army-crawl in the direction of the deer; expecting every second that they would startle and run.

They didn’t, and John Watson found himself on the receiving end of what he could only term an amused regard, expressed clearly by lovely, liquid brown eyes as the doe, amazingly, lipped at his hand gently when he stroked her. He felt humbled, and as he and Peter sat back and scooted away from the creatures a moment later, the sight of the deer trotting away into the underbrush left him with a deep feeling of peace. After another moment he realized he was grinning like an idiot, but that was all right because so was Peter. The two men broke into laughter and Peter clapped his shoulder firmly.

“That will never stop being amazing, I swear it to you John.”

“I believe you.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “God, that was fantastic.”

After another moment of excited chatter now that the children had been released from the silence they had held so remarkably well, they set off walking again.

They were just leaving the heavy wood and emerging onto another magnificent chalk hill, when Peter paused to point out a patch of lemon disco on a fallen tree, there came a loud ‘thunk’ on John’s right, which happened to be the direction in which Sherlock was currently located, eyes still presumably on the ground. He looked over quickly and found his partner looking extremely put out, actively scowling at the ground now rather than just scanning it. He decided enough was enough and sidled over to him, shooting Angie an apologetic smile. “What are you up to?” he hissed.

Sherlock’s reply was irritated and dismissive. “Nothing. The damn squirrels are quicker than I recall them being.”

John looked down to see that Sherlock was holding a slingshot. Oh for the love of – he’d been collecting rocks – that’s what he’d been doing. “Why are you trying to kill squirrels?”

“Mrs Bale won’t give me a chicken.”

John failed to make any connection between the two issues, but realized further clarification was unlikely, as Sherlock was already back on the hunt and paying him no further mind. He considered the matter carefully, and rather reluctantly decided that squirrels were among the lesser of the evils with which Sherlock could be preoccupied. It wasn’t long after this that his friend declared, “Ha! Got you, you little bugger!”, then gleefully scampered a few yards to pick up what was presumably a dead squirrel, and pocket it. Instantly, John realized how very lucky he had been so far in his association with Sherlock Holmes not to have encountered a decaying rodent in any of the many pockets he had been required to dig through in search of his phone.

They had walked over a hill and descended into a dry valley a little while on, and John was trying to tactfully disengage Angie’s hand from his arm, when suddenly all hell broke loose.

\-----  
Enter first Murtherer.  
\-----

Directly to John’s right, one of the other triplets suddenly began screaming bloody murder. Once John had reached her side, it wasn’t difficult to determine why; partially hidden by a bush, a man lay dead, bloodily murdered. His head had been violently bashed in and consequently there was a bloody mess to go along with it.

John grabbed the screaming, pointing girl and swung her round. He pulled her to him, rubbing circles on her back and murmuring reassurances into her ear until the screaming turned to sobbing. He then swung her up into his arms. Swiftly, he carried her away from the body, and once he had reached the middle of the valley, put her back down on her feet. His arms went around her again, embracing her firmly and rubbing her back again. “It’s all right, calm down, it’s all right.” He kept this up as his jacket became excessively damp. Eventually she subsided to weak hiccoughs and he eased her down to a seat on the ground.

He looked up to take stock of what everyone else had been doing while he’d been occupied. He found the children already removed from the scene, presumably by Peter who was absent as well, two very worried-looking blondes hovering a few feet away, and Sherlock crawling about the body, searching the ground closely. He dropped into a crouch in front of – yellow, impractical skirt – Ashley – and said, “You’re all right now, yeah?”

She nodded, and the other girls swooped in to take over. John rose and walked over to Sherlock, dialling 999 as he went. After he’d rung off, Sherlock began narrating in rapid fashion.

“He brought a horse out here sometime during the night. He brought a portable light source,” he gestured toward a torch on the ground nearby, still lit but fading, likely due to the drain on its batteries, “and he took off his coat and placed it over that bush. Why did he do that? It was raining, why take his coat off? John, look at this and tell me what I’m seeing.”

John took stock of the tableau before him. “The head injury is the obvious cause of death.” He crouched down to take a closer look. “This cut on his thigh is relatively clean, so made by a sharp blade. It’s long but shallow; it wouldn’t have caused him to bleed to death.” Looking more closely still, he saw that the man had a knife clutched in his palm. “Hang on, I’m going to say the cut is self-inflicted. He’s got a cataract knife for some reason; bloody stupid to use that as a pocket knife.”

“Because it doesn’t fold.”

“Exactly. The wound was caused by the flailing of his body as a result of the head injury.”

“Hm. He did, at least, have the thing corked, though that didn’t help him in the end.” Sherlock gestured to a bit of cork lying on the ground then began searching through the dead man’s pockets. He filed all the data carefully.

“Oy! Come away from there!”

John and Sherlock looked up to find the authorities, in the form of a pair of uniformed policemen and a third in plain clothes, had arrived and were making their way down into the valley. They glanced at each other.

“Well that was quick,” John offered.

“Yes, it was,” Sherlock mused thoughtfully. “Our friend must have been missed early this morning. I wonder why the police have already taken an interest, though, he’s only been dead a handful of hours, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah, that seems about right.”

“Curious.”

John took a number of steps away from the body and Sherlock returned the contents of the man’s pockets to their former positions.

The detective in charge was clearly giving instructions to his men, waving his arms about and pointing, as they approached the body. He then broke away to stride over to John and Sherlock’s position as the uniformed men began to set out stakes to form a perimeter.

“Detective Inspector Gregory,” he announced upon arrival.

“Doctor John Watson. Pleased to meet you.”

“Sherlock Holmes.”

The detective, a tall, fair man with leonine hair and beard surrounding penetrating blue eyes, raised his eyebrows. “You don’t say! Fancy that.” Then he frowned. “Are you on a case?”

“As unlikely as it may seem, I was with the party which discovered the body completely by chance. Who is he, by the way?”

“John Straker, trainer over at King’s Pyland, the racing stable to the east of here.”

“And why is Mr Straker so very important that you’ve been searching for him all morning even though he’s been missing only since the wee hours?”

John recognized the tone Sherlock used when he asked a question to which he already knew the answer. The detective, however, was oblivious and seemed willing to share information with the celebrity investigator.

“Because the favourite to take next week’s Wessex Cup, Silver Blaze, went missing along with him. There’d been a fuss at the place yesterday around dinner time and this morning there’s a stable lad out cold and Straker gone along with the horse.”

“What sort of a fuss?”

“Stranger came round making noise about getting inside information on the race and the horses involved.”

Sherlock questioned sharply, “Yes, but what exactly happened?”

Gregory looked a bit wrong-footed (perfectly normal when one was dealing with Sherlock) but obligingly referred to his notes and informed them, “Oh, let’s see, well the maid was taking dinner on a tray out to the stable lad when she was accosted by a strange man. Got the party in custody, though he’s denying any involvement in the disappearances; one Fitzroy Simpson, and he’s already coming across as a disreputable sort of fellow, gambler turned bookie.”

Completely ignoring all the information about the suspect in custody, Sherlock fired off, “What sort of dinner?”

“Erm,” he scanned his pad. “I don’t know,” he admitted finally.

Sherlock made a noise which John knew meant – IDIOT.

“Go on then.”

Looking unsure now, Gregory glanced at his pad again and then eyed the detective askance before continuing on. “The girl, Edith Baxter,” he added, apparently unsure now how much detail he was meant to include, “was alarmed and she put him off and hurried on to the stable where she knew the lad – Ned Hunter – would be able to help her get rid of him.”

“And of course this Simpson followed her,” Sherlock prompted impatiently.

Realising he had overcompensated and was losing his audience, Gregory summarized, “Yeah, he followed her and it escalated to the point where Ned set the dog on him, chased him away. Edith swears he had a paper envelope in his hand and was waving it round the food at some point, but he claims it was a tenner.”

“Ned, of course, is your drugged stable boy. Anyone else about?”

“Two other lads asleep above the stable, it was Ned’s turn to sit up.”

“Hmm,” mused Sherlock. He smiled at Gregory in a friendly way and John rolled his eyes at the abrupt transition from interrogation to we’re-all-friends-here-tell-me-everything-you-know. “Say, there’s another stable around about this area, isn’t there?”

“There is indeed; Mapleton over to the west. We have people checking all the horses there, of course,” he assured him in his best official manner.

“Oh, of course,” Sherlock returned in his best of-course-I-believe-you-but-you’ll-still-muck-it-all-up-you-idiot manner.

At this point a neat-looking, dapper little man wearing specs came rushing up to them. “Is it him?” he demanded of Gregory.

“I’m afraid it is, Colonel, but I was waiting on you for confirmation.”

“Oh, god, where is he?”

Subsequently, the new arrival positively identified the body and grew worryingly pale as a result. “I just – I can’t believe any of this. Why would that villain take Silver Blaze? Poor Straker; oh, the poor man, how will I tell his wife?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes at everyone assuming that this Simpson character was involved in all this.

Abruptly, the Colonel seemed to register the presence of unknown parties. “Oh, hello, did you find the body? Colonel Ross, pleased to meet you.”

Since Sherlock didn’t appear inclined to either question or otherwise engage, John stepped forward. “Doctor John Watson. My colleague, Sherlock Holmes.”

“What, the fake detective?”

\-----  
Fight: Alarum  
\-----

What happened next was completely instinctive. John didn’t realize he’d punched the man in the face until after he’d already done it. He stared incredulously at the previously neat little man before him who was now clutching his nose which was gushing blood. His glasses had been knocked off by the blow as well.

“Here now!” exclaimed Gregory.

“Oh god, I am so sorry!” John, again, acted instinctively in apologizing, but then Ross’s words penetrated and he shook his head. “No, hang on, I take it back. I’m not in the least sorry.”

Next to him Sherlock, who had already been fighting hard against laughter, was tipped over the edge by this bald declaration.

Ross was recovered enough by this point to have begun spluttering indignantly in John’s direction, still pinching his nose with his fingers which made it hard to determine if he was uttering actual words or not.

John, arms crossed over his chest and having put on his best mulish expression, did not look inclined to discuss the matter reasonably. As amusing as this had the potential of becoming, Sherlock decided to step in. It would be inconvenient to have to go into town because John had decided a night in jail was a fair price to pay for the chance to defend Sherlock’s reputation. He put a lid on his laughter accordingly.

“Colonel Ross,” Sherlock’s voice had gone silky smooth in order to soothe the injured man’s ruffled feathers. “I am very sorry, even if Doctor Watson is not. Do let me make up for it by locating your horse for you.”

Ross eyed him suspiciously. Sherlock could hardly blame him considering his acknowledged colleague had just (snicker) punched him in the face, so he smiled reassuringly. “I realize that the word of a man who has been condemned by the media so very thoroughly might not be worth much to you; but I do assure you, Colonel, that Silver Blaze will run in the race for the Wessex Cup next week, and he will do so solely due to my efforts.” John was glaring at him now, but he ignored him. “I hope this will make up for the indignity you’ve suffered at my partner’s hands.” The glare turned into an exasperated eye roll at Sherlock’s blatant over playing of his role.

Ross gingerly let go of his nose as he glared at John; the blood flow seemed to have stopped for the moment. He turned his attention back to Sherlock and frowned heavily. “I’ll accept any help you can offer for the sake of putting Straker’s murderer in prison. I want the case to be completely air-tight, it’s the least I can do for his wife when he was killed trying to save my horse.”

“That is eminently sensible of you, Colonel,” Sherlock assured him silkily. “Do give me leave to question the occupants of King’s Pyland, if you please.”

“Yes, all right,” he responded somewhat grudgingly.

“Splendid, we’ll just take ourselves off, then. Good day to you, Colonel.” Sherlock had to haul a still-glowering John a few yards before he deigned to move under his own power.

“Explain to me why we’re helping that tosser.”

Sherlock scolded, “Honestly, John, you can’t go around assaulting everyone who still associates my name with my lie.”

“Yes I can,” he insisted.

Sherlock regarded him fondly; he was striding along angrily now, his expression downright mutinous. The reality of the fact that his friend actually would go around punching people for him was endearing. “Well, you shouldn’t, rather. You’ll get a reputation, and then where will we be? I’ll have to apologize for you and wheedle to get you in places and I just don’t have the time to waste on that sort of nonsense, John.”

“What, you mean our roles would be completely reversed? I suppose my punching people would mirror your verbally assaulting them.”

Sherlock grinned; it had worked. John let out an emphatic huff of breath and the thunder in his brow receded. “All right, so what are we doing? Why are we looking for the horse instead of the murderer; or aren’t we looking for the horse at all?”

“We are looking for the horse,” he confirmed. “The police have got it all wrong, and if Gregory can’t deduce that the horse killed John Straker without my help then he should be sacked on the spot.”

“The horse?”

“Of course,” Sherlock rhymed in a sing-song voice.

“Oh I see. That’s why you promised to find the horse; you’ll also be turning in the murderer when you do.”

“Precisely.”

“So where is the horse?”

“The horse is at one of the stables, more probably Mapleton. They aren’t solitary creatures; he will have headed straight for others of his kind. The real question at hand is why Straker took the horse out; what was his game?”

“Wait. What? What about the bloke in jail? Wasn’t Straker rescuing the horse?”

“Not in the least, consider the dog.”

John was thoroughly confused. “The dog?”

“Yes, the curious incident of the dog in the night, John!”

“What curious bloody dog, Sherlock?”

His friend made a noise which he clearly recognized as neatly categorizing him as an IDIOT but elaborated, “The dog which we know was kept in the stable because it was set on Simpson!”

John considered this carefully. The dog in question hadn’t made another appearance in the story. “As far as we know, the dog didn’t do anything during the night.”

“Exactly,” Sherlock said with supreme satisfaction. “That was the curious incident.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

Sherlock made the IDIOT sound again but did deign to explain, “There were two lads who hadn’t been drugged and neither of them was woken by the dog. No, Straker – whom the dog knew, John – was clearly up to something. We’ll poke about King’s Pyland later to see if we can sniff it out. But first we see if we can track the horse.”

“And why do we need to track him if you’ve already determined he’s at one of the stables?”

Sherlock tutted impatiently. “If we can track his path, so can the police.”

“Yeah, so?”

Now he turned an evil grin in John’s direction. “Well, I did give the good Colonel my word that his horse would be returned to him solely due to my own efforts.”

John let this sink in. After a moment it did, and he stopped abruptly. “You’re going to obscure the trail so the police can’t track the horse? Sherlock, that’s blatant obstruction of justice!”

“Nonsense, taking a walk in the country is simply good exercise.” Sherlock turned and skipped backwards gleefully as he crowed to his stationary friend, “There’s nothing illegal about that, John!”

*****  
Enter a Messenger.  
*****

It was John who saved them having to walk the horse’s trail twice over. After circling out and finding the first trace of it, they set off in the general direction of Mapleton – the rival stable to that which was the home of the missing Silver Blaze. The trail here was spotty and they lost it a few times, but working on Sherlock’s assumption that they would end at one stable or another they simply noted when they came upon it again as they made their way in the direction of Mapleton. John very carefully ignored the fact that Sherlock was merrily skipping and tripping along directly on top of any hoof impressions he found.

They had in fact almost reached the land belonging to the rival stable when Sherlock declared, “Ah ha!” and pointed triumphantly at the ground. John looked down and saw that they’d picked up the track again, and a man’s footprint could clearly be seen pressed into the dirt beside it in this spot.

“Someone caught him?”

“It would appear so; and changed his direction.” The trail turned abruptly, now heading for King’s Pyland rather than Mapleton.

John averted his gaze as Sherlock scuffed this evidence out of existence.

They began to follow along in this new direction, but after only a few yards John noticed that there was an identical trail headed back toward Mapleton just to his left. “Hang on, he’s doubled back.”

“What?” Sherlock had clearly been too busy obscuring the original trail to have noted the second. “You’re right.” He considered the original thoughtfully, looking as if he would really rather prefer to obliterate the whole of it, but after a moment shook his head sharply. “Yes, we’ll save ourselves the walk. Come along then, Mapleton again.”

When they finally did arrive at Mapleton, Sherlock’s keen eye easily picked out a likely candidate for initial interrogation in the person of a child sitting on a bale of hay, applying soap to the leather of a bridle.

“Hello,” he greeted the small boy cheerily then whipped out his slingshot. “Care to try your hand?”

John watched as the boy’s first shots went wild and Sherlock offered helpful suggestions in between wheedling out the information he wanted – who was normally the first person up and around the place in the mornings – answer: the owner, Silas Brown – and where this individual could now be found – answer: in his office in the main house. They then parted ways with a cheery wave on both sides, and John and Sherlock proceeded to knock on the door of the main house - where Mr Silas Brown refused to see them.

Sherlock frowned at the housekeeper who had delivered the news. “John – paper.” Obligingly, he handed over his book and pen. Sherlock then proceeded to scribble a note, tear the sheet from the book, fold it roughly in half and hand it to the blasted woman. “He’ll see me.” And, of course, he did.

“What’s the meaning of this!”

“Shut up. You have the horse, and I don’t care how you’re concealing it from the authorities, but I want you to keep doing so until the day of the Wessex Cup race. If you refuse I shall turn you in for horse thievery.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the fat man seated behind the desk blustered.

Sherlock snorted as he crossed his arms over his chest and rolled his eyes. He then proceeded to rattle off in a bored monotone, “You were the only one up this morning; it was just gone four. You ran across Silver Blaze running loose on the hill to the south. He came to you quite easily, and your first instinct was to walk him home to King’s Pyland, so you set off to do so; however, as you walked you realized that all you had to do to ensure a win for yourself was to secrete him away until after the race. You turned around and brought the horse here, where you proceeded to cover his obvious markings and take whatever other steps were necessary to keep the police from identifying him as the missing favourite. I imagine you tampered with the animal’s RFID chip. You came into the house, shed your coat, exchanged your shoes for slippers, had a fry-up and coffee for breakfast – you really should consider cutting back there, your cholesterol and blood-pressure are through the roof – and proceeded into your study where you have been sitting behind your desk since, alternately congratulating yourself and worrying you’ve done the wrong thing.”

From BORED to INTENSE in the blink of an eye, Sherlock leapt toward the desk and slammed his hands down onto it, shoving his face into Silas Brown’s, their noses practically touching. “You have the horse.”

John wanted to applaud, he really did, but he refrained because he thought it would seem unprofessional. Silas Brown had gone white and sweaty as Sherlock had dictated his actions back to him in such detail and he was now gaping at him in complete befuddlement. His mouth opened and closed a few times, making him look like a fish, but he seemed incapable of actual speech.

Sherlock stood, heaving a huge sigh as he did so. “Again, I haven’t the least bit of interest in turning you over to the police unless you refuse to do as I ask. Are you completely clear on what you need to do to avoid prosecution?”

“I – I - ,” he emitted a few gulping swallows.

“Are you clear?”

When he did manage actual words, they were no more than a whisper. “How did you know?”

“Are you going to do as I’ve asked or should I ring the police?”

“No!” He had gained some volume now, though he still looked rather as if he were about to drop dead of fright. “I’ll do just as you ask. I’ll keep him hidden.”

“Good. Produce him for the race, do you understand? Silver Blaze will run the race under Colonel Ross’s colours.” He paused, and his lips quirked up into a smile. “You can leave his markings covered though,” he instructed, his tone wry.

“Yes, yes. All right.”

The smile disappeared and he added threateningly, “And I’m sure I don’t have to point out to you how very important it is that the horse come to no harm while he is in your care.”

The man gulped again and weakly managed, “No, of course not, he’ll get the best of care.”

“Good.” Sherlock pivoted on his heel, producing the familiar dramatic whirl of coat. “Come along, John, we’re done here.”

As they walked John asked, “So, King’s Pyland next?”

“No, dash it, I’ve got to get to rehearsal or Forester will come hunt me down. I’m already late. This afternoon, though.”

John shook his head. “Can’t, I’m sitting for Claude.”

“Damn.”

“Tomorrow morning?”

“Rehearsal in the morning; science tutorial in the afternoon.”

John frowned. “Perhaps I can reschedule with Claude.”

“Yes, see if you can. Meet me in the small library at one.”


	4. Act IV

*****  
Actus Quartus.

JOHN: You wanna remember, Sherlock: I was a soldier. I killed people.  
SHERLOCK: You were a doctor!  
JOHN: I had bad days!

Enter Fighting, and Macbeth slaine.  
*****

It could have been the whim of chance which threw John into Hannibal Holmes’s path that morning, but it probably wasn’t. He had walked back from the cottage and was wandering through the house aimlessly, checking the various rooms he passed to see what sort of mad activities were taking place within each of them. He’d already encountered a yoga session, a painting lesson, a tableau which made him say ‘Oh, sorry!’ and exit swiftly, a game of Cluedo, eight couples doing the tango, the tweedy-looking gentleman from dinner the first night demonstrating for an audience of two how to properly taxidermy a beaver, a group lesson in Ikebana, a screening of Gone With the Wind, a roomful of women vociferously praising the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an acupuncture session, a full dress rehearsal of the ‘Out Damned Spot’ scene featuring a scantily-clad Not Anthea, a knot-tying tutorial, and three separate fencing matches.

He had just ended up in a hallway which doubled as a portrait gallery; windows lined the wall which wasn’t cluttered with framed canvases of all sizes. He was admiring some of them and considering how odd it was that Claude was going to produce a portrait of him. He’d certainly never considered having one done. The voice came from the opposite end of the hall.

“Ah. The good Doctor Watson.”

John froze. The dichotomy of that voice just flat-out slayed him every fucking time. He wanted to smile and turn to his friend. Instead, he grimaced and turned to his new arch enemy. It seemed a very long time indeed since he had wondered if people actually had arch enemies.

“Mr Holmes. What a pleasure to see you again.”

An elegant brow was raised, indicating he had caught the tone which gave lie to the words. “How fares my younger son this morning, I haven’t seen him.” Hannibal prowled over the ground between them, stalking toward him.

“Well, presumably that means he’s fine.”

The other man’s eyes glinted dangerously. Yes, he would be up for a fight at all times, John thought.

“And did the two of you have an enjoyable night?”

“Oh yeah,” John said, “Yes, we had loads of sex, so it was great. You know, gay sex, man on man, lots of it,” he added with relish - just for good measure.

It worked, and John found himself pinned to the wall between two windows by a humongous hand round his throat. Right then, he thought cheerfully, and kneed his future father-in-law hard in the groin.

Hannibal’s body reacted, and John found himself released and on his feet once more. He took the opportunity to dance a couple steps to his right and take up a defensive posture. His opponent recovered swiftly and came up swinging. John dodged his right hook and jabbed him in the gut as he continued to move to his right.

“You are,” he informed Hannibal, “a terrible fucking person.”

Hannibal managed to get in a glancing blow to John’s chin, but John’s left fist had already been on its way to smashing into Hannibal’s nose, and there was no stopping it.

John kept moving, dancing lightly as he’d been trained to do, ready to dodge and weave to avoid incoming blows. “I really should shoot you, but I’m not keen on going to prison for killing a man as small and petty as you.”

Hannibal voiced a purring growl in Sherlock’s silky tones and lunged at him. John performed a twirl worthy of an expert matador and the larger man missed him entirely, pulled up short, clearly enraged now. “How dare you,” he growled, “you excuse for a man, how dare you hold us up for public mockery as you do, publicizing Sherlock’s freakish abilities which he just sells to the highest bidder, inviting the world to laugh at us and buggering him into the bargain. You’ll sell all the sexual filth after you’ve left him behind, of course, dragging us through the muck one last time, trading on the Holmes name to make your fortune; what do they call you, a rent boy?”

John almost laughed, turned, and walked away; he honestly almost did. He actually dropped his fists slightly and surveyed the man before him. This was all so completely ludicrous. He felt as if he’d been dropped into a really terrible episode of Eastenders.

“Did you ever, even once, tell him you loved him?” He had no idea where the question had come from, but suddenly there it was, hanging in the air between them. Hannibal’s expression did not soften in the slightest. “No, of course you didn’t. You don’t love him, so why would you bother?” And with this realization, John’s patience ran out. He was done pretending that it was all right that Sherlock’s childhood must have resembled one of Dante’s rings of Hell. He was done pretending that a mother who petted her dogs but couldn’t be bothered to kiss her son’s cheek shouldn’t be shot without the offer of a last cigarette. He was very definitely done with this man who routinely threatened to blow up his friend, body and soul.

John Watson raised his fists again and gave his opponent fair warning. “I am going to hit you until you stop getting up and coming back for more.”

In response to this, Hannibal, with almost more contempt than John had ever before heard in his son’s voice asked, “Are you really, nancy boy?” with an infuriating smirk. John stepped forward. He smashed his left fist into his opponent’s gut and the right into his mouth, successfully replacing the contempt with shock and the smirk with a split lip.

For all his sleek, entitled bravado, Hannibal was no match for John’s army training and righteous anger. He fumbled, though he didn’t go down straight away. He tried to recover and swung at John with his right again. John dodged it neatly and pummelled the other man’s ribcage left-right-left-right-left-right and then a hard left hook to the jaw. Hannibal stumbled and went down for the first time.

He was soon up, but staggering, and John used the advantage to sweep his feet out from under him and send him down to the floor again, knocking the wind out of him. This seemed to make Hannibal angry, and he came up swinging, but he was sloppy in his rage and John easily hammered him in the gut and nose again, and now there was quite a lot of blood involved. Angry but controlled – oh so icily controlled – John followed up with another blow to the jaw, this time from the right and followed that up (followed him down) with a left to his kidney.

It went on like that for a while. Eventually, Hannibal stayed down.

John looked down at the man he had just beaten into submission, and the rage which was driving him demanded that he now proceed to kick the stuffing out of him. John blinked in surprise and realized that he was probably capable of beating this man to death at this moment. He mentally took a step back and considered the benefits of doing so. He really wanted to, quite badly; that was why he decided not to. Instead, as a parting gift he leaned down, gripped Hannibal by the lapels and shook him, hard, knocking his head against the wall. “Stay away from Sherlock or I might very well change my mind about shooting you. Mycroft would be able to get the charges dropped, you know, and I probably wouldn’t even have to say please if it was you I’d murdered.”

He left him there in a heap, a battered and bleeding personification of bigotry, hatred and cruelty.

*****  
Flourish.  
*****

After John had cleaned himself up, he ended up chatting with Jean and Lionel over lunch.

“Don’t let Alistair worry you, he’s harmless, really.”

“Well I wouldn’t say harmless exactly. He did send you a Gorillagram once.”

“Oh he did, didn’t he? Mostly harmless then,” pixie-like Jean amended with a giggle.

“Considering the rest of the family, mostly harmless is practically an award complete with statuette,” Lionel grumbled.

“We do love your blog, John,” Jean deftly switched the subject.

John smiled. He liked this pair. Lionel was almost as dour as his hang-dog appearance implied he would be, but Jean sparkled enough for the both of them. “Thank you,” he said.

“You should do a blog,” she said to Lionel, the thought clearly a new one.

“Oh god, here we go. Why on earth would I want to write a blog?”

“What do you mean, ‘Here we go.’? You make it sound as if I’m always throwing round crazy ideas like a character on a sitcom.”

Lionel looked at her incredulously. “You are always throwing round crazy ideas,” he insisted.

“Don’t be silly!”

“Jean, honestly -,’

“No, I’m serious. You should write a blog, you could reach a whole new audience.”

“I’ve never wanted to reach any audience,” Lionel insisted.

“Of course you do. You wouldn’t have written anything at all if you didn’t.”

“If I’d known how much trouble it was all going to be I certainly wouldn’t have.”

“He’s just being contrary on purpose. He does that,” Jean told John.

He smiled. “I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with your work, Lionel, what have you written?”

“I am the proud author of a volume entitled My Life in Kenya which sold approximately five copies despite a salacious cover picture entirely inappropriate to the content; it was, shockingly enough, all about my life in Kenya. I also wrote a script which was turned into a horrid mini-series.”

John controlled his laughter and asked, “What was the horrid mini-series about then? I’ve probably seen it.”

Jean sparkled. “Oh, that was all about our romance.”

“Really? You’ve got a good story then.”

“Oh yes,” Jean confided, “it’s a very good story indeed. You see, Lionel and I first met in the summer of 1953. He was doing his national service, and was Second Lieutenant Hardcastle while I was a nurse at Middlesex Hospital.”

His gruffness abating, Lionel put in, “I asked her the way to Kurzon Street.”

Jean giggled. “I didn’t know the way to Kurzon Street.”

“I didn’t really want to go there anyway.” Lionel reached out and covered Jean’s hand with his own. “It was just the first street which came into my head.”

Jean beamed at him fondly. “We had a whirlwind romance, but then Lionel was posted to Korea. It turns out that he did write to me, but the letter never arrived, and so I assumed he hadn’t written after all.”

“My letter; it’s in the Imperial War Museum now, just imagine.”

“The cheek!” John said.

“Yes, Her Majesty’s army didn’t take into account what that missing letter would mean for the two of us,” Lionel mused.

“Well, of course I was heartbroken, but life goes on.”

“We both married and, well, lived. Then I came back to England and completely by chance I hired Jean’s secretarial agency when I needed to put together the final draft of my book.”

“Thirty-eight years after we’d met, we met again.” Jean smiled at Lionel fondly. “It turned out my dashing Second Lieutenant had grown into a grumpy old codger with a fondness for custard tarts.”

“I was always fond of custard tarts, you’ve just forgotten.”

“So the book brought you together again,” observed John.

“Yes,” Jean said, “and that’s why you should start writing a blog,” she told her husband firmly.

“The two things have absolutely no connection,” complained Lionel, “unless you want me to reconnect with yet another long-lost love through an internet blog. Are you ready to be rid of me then? Going to pass me on to the next pretty girl who didn’t know the way to Kurzon Street forty-eight years ago?”

“Forty-seven, unless you were running another girl while we were seeing each other.”

“Certainly not.”

“Well then, that settles it.”

“What settles what?” he sputtered.

Ignoring him, Jean turned to John and asked, “What do you think Lionel should blog about?”

*****  
Enter Macduffe, with Macbeths head.  
*****

John was feeling quite optimistic about things when he left the dining room to meet Sherlock.. The morning had presented a case, a satisfying opportunity to punch Hannibal’s lights out, and an uplifting love story.

But it seemed Bartók hadn’t been done playing with Sherlock’s head.

When he entered it, the small library appeared to be empty. Hands on hips, he surveyed the space again, baffled. Then he heard a tiny sound, the sound of a plucked violin string. He frowned, and stepped further into the room. After a bit of a search, he found him, looking worryingly scrunched physically into the space under the table which seemed to offend him so much. He squatted down and poked at his friend to get his attention, which currently seemed to be engaged in finding a way to manoeuvre his violin into a position where he could do more than pluck at it.

“How on earth did you manage to squeeze yourself in there?”

Sherlock blinked, seemed to come back to himself, and then grimaced. “I’ve no idea, but it is intensely uncomfortable.”

John sighed. “Come on, let’s get you out.”

After quite a lot of wrangling, they managed it with both Sherlock and the table remaining in one piece. John confiscated the violin and sat his friend down firmly. “All right, let’s have it. What happened? Who do I need to shoot this time?”

Sherlock wondered how to explain that it felt as if the music of Béla Bartók had taken up residence inside his psyche and was now attacking him from the inside. Haltingly, he began speaking. “It – isn’t anything that happened right now.”

“Go on,” John urged in a calm tone. “You can tell me. Whatever it is, it’ll be fine.”

“It’s the music, John. I don’t – I can’t explain it, but it’s the music.”

“Yes, I can see that.” His friend leaned back and regarded him thoughtfully. “You take it inside yourself like you don’t anything else. You let it in and it runs riot inside you.”

He considered that thought, and nodded in agreement.

John went on, “Something in these pieces you’re working on has touched something particularly sensitive.” He paused again, considering Sherlock’s words. “It’s triggering memories.”

His friend nodded again.

“So we need to trigger some better memories for you.”

Sherlock blinked.

“Come on,” John urged, “there have to be a few good memories knocking about this place. You did spend Christmases here after all. Get any good presents? A puppy, maybe?”

“Plutarch,” he responded automatically.

John grinned, another mystery solved. “Of course you named the puppy Plutarch, you mad genius.”

Sherlock sniffed. “It was a condition that Mycroft and I agreed upon the name. It narrowed the choices considerably.”

A sharp bark of laughter greeted this assertion. “Yes, I can imagine it did. What else did you do while you were here? You’re not a joiner, so what did ickle Sherlock do over the hols?”

He wrinkled his nose at this, but gave the matter in question some consideration. “I read.” He shrugged. “I sat in trees and tried to avoid notice.”

“Go on, what else? I’m told you ambushed Simon frequently.”

He sighed. “I -,” Something suddenly occurred to him, something he had done that same holiday he had been six. “Oh, I composed,” he breathed. “I composed my first piece that year.” Just as suddenly that memory was chased off by another and he sagged, both physically and emotionally. “But we left – abruptly – and in the rush I neglected to retrieve the sheet music.”

John considered this. The Holmes clan was undeniably an arty lot and handwritten notes on proper sheet music seemed unlikely to have been simply tossed away; also some sort of distraction was most certainly called for. “Let’s hunt it up, then.”

“What?”

“Well surely this place has an attic? My mum had boxes stuffed with old school papers; people save every useless thing and shove it into the attic, so we’re in with a chance.” He stood decisively. “Come on, we’ll have a bit of a shufti and maybe we’ll find your lost symphony.”

“It was a sonata,” his friend corrected absently.

John rolled his eyes. “Yes, fine, the lost sonata of ickle Sherlock Holmes. Come on, lead the way.” He tugged his companion up from his seat and propelled him out the door.

He really should have anticipated the attic being both unbelievably large and stuffed with undeniably mad objects. He hadn’t, however, so the stuffed dodo bird startled him terribly.

Sherlock doubled over with laughter. “That sound you just made!”

“Yes, fine, Sherlock.”

“It was the same one you used for Simon!”

“Yes, I realize that, Sherlock, but thank you for pointing it out anyway.”

“But it was – just, you -,” He dissolved into helpless laughter.

“Yes! Thank you, Sherlock, again. I shrieked like a little girl, I realize that. Now shut the bloody hell up about it.” While he waited for the giggles to subside, John had a look round and tried to decide if there was any one point where it might be less daunting to begin their search.

He decided there wasn’t. Generations of Holmeses must have been acquiring and then abandoning objects to this room since time immemorial in order to create the layers of objects which had proven ephemeral and were now on display as if in some sort of insane museum of lost and found objects. John could see a hanging medical skeleton with one leg missing, a set of bagpipes, a box of gas masks and another of mining lamps, a harp with no strings, a dress form which was wearing something distinctly Edwardian, an astonishingly ugly coat rack, trunk after trunk lining the walls (each of which he suspected must be stuffed to the gills), a victrola, a golliwog alongside a statue of Vishnu, paintings propped against every available surface, an umbrella stand from which swords sprouted (pointy ends mostly down), furniture of every possible description which had all been piled high with boxes and stacks of papers, at least two grandfather clocks; and this was all just at first glance.

John realized a couple of things. The first was that since apparently the Holmes clan never binned anything, the odds were pretty good that the sheet music they were in search of was in here somewhere; the second was that the odds of their finding anything they were actually looking for were slim to none, so he instantly decided that he wasn’t actually trying to find Sherlock’s lost work, he was simply having a look around. He studied the dodo a bit more closely, and it occurred to him to wonder if this was the only example of taxidermy the room housed. The extraordinarily large space was dim and shadowy, and dust motes danced eloquently in the beams of light which fought through the masses of objects before him. The air felt a bit heavy and solemn, and John was reminded of the peaceful feeling one gets when visiting a Cathedral. He snorted to himself at the idea of a Cathedral where one worshipped the collection of dolly pegs which lived behind the door. He waded into the maze, choosing a direction at random.

He stopped in front of a trunk which had on top of it two large boxes. He opened one of them. It was full of wellies. Curious, John dug down to the bottom to make sure; yep, nothing but wellies, and chock full of them. The mass of dark green and black rubber all seemed to be odd, as well. The sizes ranged from humongous to downright dainty, but not one seemed to match any of the others. It was a boggling thought that this box and its contents existed in the world.

The next box he opened was full of daggers, some sheathed, others not. Most of the ones he could see were beautiful, works of art in metal meant to draw blood. He hesitated before carefully taking out one of the blades near the top and holding it up for a better view. It was gorgeous, the handle was done in ivory and it was warm in his hand, the grip perfect. He unsheathed it to find the blade itself sadly rusted and pitted and he frowned; such a shame, that. He returned it to the box and closed it up again.

He removed the boxes from the top of the trunk and opened that to find it full of ice skates which mapped the evolution of the object from its very invention up to a pair sporting a cheery-looking Hello Kitty. “This area seems to have been categorized at some point. I’ve got odd wellies, daggers and ice skates. What are you seeing over there?” he inquired.

Sherlock took in the contents of the trunk he was currently looking through. “This section has not received the same attention. This trunk contains a set of ivory game counters shaped like fish; five pairs of bi-focals; Great Aunt Vivianne's collection of cigarette holders; a matching cigarette case, clock, pen holder without the pen, and the lighter from her desk set; a cigar box filled with costume jewellery, half of the paste gems gone; a scrapbook full of theatre tickets; a hatbox full of small Victorian handbags; a single Persian slipper; and a nineteenth century air rifle of unusual design.”

It just went on and on like that. John opened a wardrobe to find the bottom of it full of mothballs and an assortment of furs ranging from a gorgeous, perfectly preserved silver stole which was so soft its touch felt like a breeze on his skin, to a ratty old brown coat large enough that it would have swallowed a bear alive, and might honestly have once been a bear. Sherlock unearthed, in a box lid slid under a dresser full of stuck drawers, a child's collection of river-smoothed oval stones and later; in a trunk, in a jewellery box, in tissue paper tied with a worn gold ribbon, a pair of unworn baby's shoes. He identified one of John’s finds as a rug beater, and the object it was propped against as a Victorian pump action vacuum cleaner. One trunk contained a pair of old ski boots, the kind that lace on, with all the laces in knots; also in that one was a book press and a glass display case of native insects, the last of which they confiscated to give to Peter.

Rolled up in a long canister, which had been put on top of a mirror with an elaborately carved frame (the symbols on which seemed to be trying to tell him something, though he knew not what) Sherlock found a set of plane spotting charts. Under a worn out wing chair, which must have proven slightly too wobbly even for the servants (when there were servants), John discovered a fly fishing kit which had turned too brittle with age for anything in it to be of use. Sherlock slipped into his pocket a beautiful antique bottle, mostly opaque, sealed with lead. John frankly admired a glorious, life sized watercolour reclining nude, boxed up to keep her from the light but unprotected from the temperature and her paint sadly cracking because of it; it was not signed and he wondered if it was Claude’s work.

An open area (which they discovered by clearing boxes [which proved to contain a truly astonishing array of feathers riotously representing every colour of the rainbow and possibly every bird on Earth] from the space under a grand piano and crawling underneath it) looked to have been used as some artist’s studio during some unknowable time period. An easel stood next to the window and was surrounded by a detritus of paints (dried), paint brushes, palettes, artists’ papers, charcoal sticks, and once-stretched canvas. This little carved-out space was also home to one lone silver and crystal coaster which had been used as an ash tray and was still half full of filters; a razor strop lay on the floor nearby. The wall around the window had been adorned with a matching set of badly done oils depicting scenes from either Greek or Roman mythology; the figures were too poorly rendered for a definitive verdict.

Forging ahead, they were able to leave this artist’s den by climbing a bookcase stuffed with volumes both thick and thin, then dropping gently to the ground on the other side, landing in an old rowboat which sat on a rug full of holes, some clearly burned into it, others eaten. One end of the boat was home to a box filled with mugs, plates, bells, coins, paperweights, various glassware, and bookmarks all celebrating a Coronation, Royal Wedding, or other anniversary (all the reigns John could name, and some he couldn’t, were represented); the other housed a mounted water buffalo head.

They found a wardrobe which contained nothing but hundreds of dusty, rusting trophy cups and a medicine cabinet which held seventeen jars of jam gone solid with age. A turn at a cast-iron mangler (which John swore had reached out and tripped him) seemed to mark the end of their progress, but then Sherlock found he could wriggle through a small window formed by a trunk (full of unboxed Meccano), a chalkboard locked into upright position, and a pair of huge decorative pillars which were too heavy to be shifted. Slithering after him, on his stomach over the trunk and under the board, John got stuck for just a moment, and Sherlock tugged him out by both hands.

They rummaged through trunk after trunk, moved through the attic wardrobe by wardrobe, their finds becoming ever more unlikely; and finally (Finally!) they came to a box which proved to contain (among other things) a racy manuscript which seemed to be a tell-all featuring the Holmes family members circa 1895; a pair of yellowed go-go boots; a creepy crawlers set, all the bottles empty; a bundle of children's writing exercises; an ancient pistol; a Spirograph; a compact encrusted with what John was fairly certain were real diamonds; a View-Master loaded with a Doctor Who disc and; miraculously, Sherlock’s lost sonata.

*****  
Enter Lady, with a Taper.  
*****

It was very late indeed, but that didn’t mean that the low-level hum of activity had ceased in Mycroft’s makeshift command post which he set up in one of the many parlours of his Uncle’s castle (unlike John, he did not shy away from the correct term) when he was in residence. Time zones, you see, meant that Mycroft tended to work round the clock. There was always something interesting going on somewhere, he found. This was why the dim firelight which suffused the room with warmth was supplemented by the glow of a handful of computer screens, some monitoring the premises, others – well – Mycroft would tell you what they showed, but then he would have to have you killed, of course.

It was late enough, however, that he had loosened his tie and allowed himself to look a bit mussed about the edges. He was sprawled in a wing chair, his usual posture worn away by the stress of the day. He was rather seriously considering taking off his shoes. Even in a houseful of Holmeses it was unlikely that anyone would be seeking him out at this hour. And yet, a flash of movement on one of the screens to his left told him that someone was walking down the hallway toward his position. He arched an eyebrow in curiosity and told the Premier he would ring him back at a more convenient time. Just as he rang off, the door opened and his assistant came in.

She was – he blinked – she was barefoot. Her hair was a dark cloud about her shoulders and she wore a robe of soft blue velvet loosely belted over a satin nightgown of a deeper, richer blue. She looked very much as if she had just slipped out of bed, and in one hand she held a crossbow.

“Bonus not what you thought it should be?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, and set the crossbow down next to the door.

“And you find stalking the halls patrolling for vampiric Holmeses soothing?”

Her eyes sparkled. “Well, I’d call it stimulating actually, but we certainly don’t have to agree on all points.” Witty banter with just a hint of suggestiveness – check. She fluttered her eyelashes a bit and added, “I’m very good with a crossbow.”

“Yes,” Mycroft said uncertainly, drawing the word into more syllables than were usually warranted. “I am aware of that.”

She wondered what he would do if she crawled into his lap.

It turned out that this caused him to jump up as if scalded, making said lap abruptly disappear.

Mycroft stared at the heap of deliciously tousled velvet and satin which had so recently been a rational woman whom he trusted with his life and, rather more importantly, various bits of information which could bring down empires.

“Ouch,” she complained as she glared up at him.

“It would be much simpler if you shot me.”

“Simpler, yes. More fun, no.” She decided to stay on the floor, but folded her legs up more comfortably and shifted a bit so the sofa supported her back.

“Fun? Good god, woman.”

“Mycroft,” she said sternly, “fun is not a naughty word.”

“Hm,” he intoned disbelievingly.

“Besides, shooting you would also be messier.”

“No,” he assured her emphatically, “it would not.”

“Certainly it would, think of the blood.”

He raised a single elegant brow at her.

She rolled her eyes. “This is all your fault,” she told him.

The squeak which emerged in response was so completely adorable that she would have been lost then even if she hadn’t already been dreaming about his laughter, honest laughter without a hint of his normal cynicism.

“My fault?”

“Yes, your fault,” she said crossly, seriously annoyed with him now. “You’re unreasonably attractive when you laugh,” she informed him scathingly.

“I’m – what? What are you talking about? I am never unreasonably anything, I assure you.”

“And when you squeak,” she added angrily.

“I most certainly never squeak!”

“You just did it half a moment ago! It was ridiculously adorable!” she yelled at him.

Inanely he shouted back, “You brought a crossbow!” because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. “And you’re,” he paused, stopped shouting, realized his mouth had gone rather dry. “You’re barefoot.”

Her eyes glinted dangerously for just a second and then she purred, “And do you find that unreasonably attractive?”

Mycroft found that he actually did.

Oh dear.

*****  
Enter Murtherers.  
*****

After determining that Sherlock wasn’t much the worse for wear following his rehearsal the next morning, John rejoiced in the fact that if was finally, finally time to witness his friend giving the children of the Holmes clan a science tutorial. For the occasion he was even introduced to a new room of the house, the schoolroom. When they arrived, John realized it was set up for a dissection lab. Of course, he thought, the dead bird and the squirrel hunting all suddenly made much more sense. Each desk had a dissection tray, a small container full of pins, and a set of tools; each tray held either a squirrel or rabbit. On the teacher’s desk was the same set-up along with John’s pheasant.

At precisely half past one a stream of children came into the room and after a bit of fuss and noise, settled into the chairs provided. A low buzz of conversation continued until Sherlock cleared his throat and rose to his feet.

“I will be demonstrating the art of dissection using this pheasant. You will then work in pairs to dissect the small mammals you have been provided. This will allow you to see how the insides of the animals are put together and will give you insight into how your own bodies work, how your muscles move your limbs, and the organs it contains. Doctor Watson and I will be on hand to assist you as you work. Does anyone have any questions before we begin?”

Hands shot up all over the room.

Sherlock sternly insisted, “Questions directly related to the dissections we are about to perform.”

About half the hands went down.

“Questions which absolutely cannot wait until you are turned loose on your parents after the dissections are complete.”

After a bit of hesitation and obvious debate, two hands remained.

“Yes. You first.”

“Where did the rabbits come from?”

“The grounds around the house. Now you.”

“You killed them?” The little girl sounded horrified, and John winced.

“Doctor Watson shot the pheasant; he very likely also shot the one you ate at dinner last night. Your cousin Peter Hannay snared the rabbits and yes, I killed the squirrels.”

“How did you kill them?” called an eager little boy out of turn.

“I used a slingshot. Look, none of these questions are relevant so we’re going to begin now. Please direct your attention to me.” He picked up his scalpel. “The opening incision will be very shallow, you simply want to pierce the skin so that you can pull it away and see the inside of the animal. It is a long incision which begins at the base of the throat and runs the length of the body. Because pheasants have a crop just here at the base of the throat,” he propped up his tray to indicate the position of the crop on his bird as he continued, “I will start below that point to avoid spilling out the contents of the bird’s last meal. Neither squirrels nor rabbits have a crop, so you may all begin a bit higher up when you start.”

And Sherlock proceeded to systematically cut up the bird. To John’s complete amazement, none of the children seemed overly uncomfortable (there were a few ‘yicks’ but not many) and exactly none of them fled the room. He demonstrated the correct way to pin the skin back and remove the organs so they could be individually studied and compared, and at the end he unpinned the bird and showed them how muscles could be pulled to make dead limbs move.

It should have been the most grotesque Frankenstein visual you could imagine; the plucked, cut-open body of the bird in stark contrast to the still-glorious plumage of its wings, its head lolling sickeningly, and Sherlock working it like a puppet. Instead it was beautiful; one of Sherlock’s graceful hands cupped the bulk of the creature, the other deftly manipulated some mysterious muscles and, despite its being dead, the bird spread its wings majestically, one last time.

There was a chorus of ‘oh’s and ‘ah’s, proving that it wasn’t only John’s imagination that his friend had somehow managed to transform this experience into something magical for the kids.

Afterwards, John and Sherlock walked up and down, helping tiny hands make tiny cuts in tiny dead animals. It was surreal in the extreme for John; medical school for tots, or some such. They were really fascinated, though; they wanted to understand how everything worked, and taking the tiny bodies apart piece by piece helped them do this. There was a tricky moment when little Suzy’s scalpel dug a bit too deep, but luckily they had an extra rabbit and she and her partner were able to start over.

Once each child was satisfied that there was no further knowledge to be gleaned from his or her tiny, disassembled corpse (Sherlock didn’t rush any of them and he answered each question put to him thoroughly; another amazing aspect of the experience for John) the children cleaned up and filed out, most of them chorusing, “Thank you Cousin Sherlock!” or, “Thank you Doctor Watson!” as they did so.

“That was bloody amazing,” John declared.

“Hm,” Sherlock mused. “This was a rather good lot. The last time I did dissection there were criers; God, I’ll never use kittens again,” he shuddered with disgust.

John paled and said incredulously, “You killed a litter of kittens for a dissection lab you gave to a bunch of under-twelves?”

“Don’t be silly, why would I go to that much effort? The mother died and the kittens didn’t survive.”

*****  
Exit crying Murther.  
*****

After the dissection lab, they decided it wasn’t too late to head over to King’s Pyland and get in a bit of detecting before dinner, see if they couldn’t suss out the dead man’s reason for taking Silver Blaze out of the stable in the middle of a rainy night.

King’s Pyland was a smaller affair than Mapleton, and Colonel Ross was out and about when they arrived. He eyed John, who glared at him, and observed coolly, “Took your time about it, didn’t you?”

Sherlock decided taking up his previous servile attitude would serve no useful purpose and simply stated, “I’ve come to question John Straker’s wife.”

Ross looked puzzled. “Don’t you want to speak with Edith and Ned?”

“Why the devil would I want to do that? Who are they?”

“They’re the ones who interacted with Simpson! The murderer!”

“Oh, that fellow; no, I’m not interested in him at all.”

Ross looked as if he wanted to hit something, and preferably someone. Incredulously, he asked, “You’re not interested in the murderer?”

In what was (for him) a patient tone, Sherlock explained, “Colonel Ross, the theory that this Simpson character murdered Straker is based upon nothing but circumstantial evidence. The police are free to conduct their investigation based on that assumption. I, however, will base mine on the facts of the case. Now please have me conducted to Mrs Straker.”

Ross sputtered, “But – but they found Simpson’s handkerchief in Straker’s pocket!”

“Hm. That explains that, at least.” When Ross continued to regard him with open-mouthed disbelief, he rolled his eyes and went on, his tone harsh and staccato now, “What precisely do you believe that proves, Colonel? Straker sneezed and Simpson very gallantly offered him the use of his hanky before violently bashing in his skull? Do use your brain. Mrs Straker. Now, if you please.”

Sherlock’s patience had clearly run out, but so had Ross’s. The man turned huffily and strode away from them, calling out for one of his employees to escort them to the Straker residence as he went.

This was how they found themselves in the presence of the recent widow, a woman whose face was haggard and thin and eager, stamped with the print of a recent horror. Somewhat to John’s surprise, Sherlock softened in response to her obvious distress. He gently asked her to tell them about the events leading up to her husband’s disappearance, and it was clear that relating the story yet again was actually soothing at this point and doing so calmed her considerably. By the time she had finished the tale of her husband’s accidentally waking her in the middle of the night and proceeding out into the rain despite her protests, she was steady as a rock, and Sherlock smiled at her approvingly. “Thank you, Mrs Straker, that is immensely helpful.” He hesitated, his smile softened, and then, his tone gone a bit sheepish, asked, “I’m terribly sorry, I’m awful with faces, but haven’t we met before? Surely I met you in Plymouth at a garden-party some little time ago.”

“Plymouth? No, sir; you are mistaken.”

Sherlock frowned. “But I can clearly recall a rather magnificent brooch you were wearing, in the shape of a dove.”

"I never had such a brooch, sir," answered the lady.

"Ah, that quite settles it," said Sherlock. And with an apology they took their leave. John couldn’t see that they’d accomplished anything, but Sherlock seemed satisfied, and he’d certainly not been to Plymouth recently, so there had to have been more to that. Hopefully his partner would be in an explaining sort of mood while they walked back to the estate.

The lad who had been instructed to take them to Mrs Straker had waited during the interview and now walked with them to the edge of the property. Just as they were passing out of the gate, though, Sherlock stopped abruptly and whirled around, eyes wide. “Sheep!” he declared.

The boy looked at John, clearly bewildered. John smiled at him reassuringly, recognizing the signs of his friend slotting something into place in his head.

Sherlock pointed into the distance, where John could just make out a couple of white blotches. They were too far away for him to have automatically assumed these were sheep, but he was willing to take his partner’s word for it. He whirled again, rounding on the boy. “Who tends the sheep?” he demanded, looking much more excited than anyone should when questioning someone about sheep.

“I – I do, sir,” stuttered the boy, and he was rewarded with an approving smile wider than the Sahara.

“Good lad,” said Sherlock, still beaming. “How have they been lately?”

The boy looked mystified, and he shot another glance at John, clearly seeking confirmation his friend was mad. John gave him his best ‘It’s all right, just humour the madman.’ smile.

“Well, fine, sir. They’re – sheep,” he finished a bit helplessly.

Sherlock, as he was wont to do, turned cross in an instant. “Nothing wrong with them recently, then?”

The boy blinked, and actually seemed to think about the question this time. “Oh. Well, yes, I suppose a couple have gone lame recently, but it doesn’t really matter with sheep, sir, so I hadn’t thought much of it.”

And there it was, the expression which he got when he’d solved it, the last piece of the puzzle had been fitted into place. His smile turned approving again, and he actually patted the lad on the head.

“Let’s go, John, we’re done here.” Sherlock practically skipped away, John following in his wake.

It was really delightful to see Sherlock so utterly pleased with himself after the emotional turmoil they’d been experiencing over the last week, and John allowed himself to really enjoy the moment when he gave his friend a chance to show off. “Why’d he do it, then?”

“Oh, John, it’s terribly boring!” he crowed in response, his delighted tone completely belying the words. “He did it for the money! It’s always about money, and money is so terribly boring!”

“And why did he need the money?” John prompted obediently.

“Second wife in Exeter with expensive taste in jewellery.”

“Ah, the brooch.”

“Yes, the brooch which he was still paying off in instalments.”

“Which you knew how?”

“Receipts in his billfold.”

“And the sheep?”

Sherlock laughed. “He was practicing on them.”

“He was going to lame the horse. Of course, I should have put that together when I saw the knife,” John chastised himself.

“Yes, you should have, that bit was fairly obvious,” his friend gloated.

John returned good-naturedly, “You didn’t know until just now.”

“It’s why he took off his coat, close work. He either took a bribe to make sure the favourite didn’t run, or he had some betting scheme set up.”

“But the horse startled,” John said, thinking, “because of the light?”

“Precisely.”

“And kicked him in the head.”

“A perfect reward for his intended actions.”

He thought about the case for a moment as Sherlock continued to hum along happily beside him. “What are we going to do about the innocent man currently sitting in a jail cell?”

“Release him of course. Lestrade will deal with it, though, my plan is to have a bit of fun with our dear Colonel on race day and then I’ll wash my hands of the matter. It really was a boring little case in the end,” he sniffed.

“Mmmm,” John agreed wordlessly. Boring or not, he was glad it had come along when it had.


	5. Act V

*****  
Actus Quintus.

SHERLOCK: Geek interpreter. What’s that?  
JOHN: It’s the title.  
SHERLOCK: What does it need a title for?

Exit Lady Macduff, crying "Murther!"

Exeunt Murtherers, following her.  
*****

Successfully closing out a case seemed to have fortified Sherlock for the next morning’s rehearsal, and John collected him without incident as he headed out to Claude and Grandmère’s cottage.

“Finally! I was beginning to think you were avoiding me and that I would have to work from the sketches I’d already done.”

“No, no,” John said sheepishly. “Sorry, it’s just that we had a case on and that always complicates things, especially time management.”

“Sherlock! You came!” Grandmère bustled in, just pausing to set down the tea tray before embracing her grandson, then John in turn. She then twirled over to the piano where she played and sang a short tune in exuberant French.

Claude gestured to the tea tray. “You can sit and visit, John, I have what I need for the pose and I’ll just be doing studies today, getting your individual features. You’re ready?”

“Yes, go ahead, commence the creepy artistic staring. I can take it.”

“A brave man indeed,” Claude responded with a grin, “to take on all these Holmeses and their creepy artistic staring!”

John grinned back. “I am reliably informed that the group noun for Holmeses is an eccentricity of them.”

“Nonsense, it’s a complication of Holmeses, much more apt.”

“An inconvenience,” put in Sherlock.

“An extrapolation,” offered Grandmère.

“A Gordian bloody knot of Holmeses,” John decided.

“Which you’ve sliced through quite effectively,” Sherlock observed, then asked archly, “Shouldn’t you take off your shirt, John?”

Claude grinned. “No need, Sherlock, I’ve got that down.”

“I think he should take it off in any case,” Grandmère offered as she finished her tune with a flourish.

“Oh, so do I,” drawled Sherlock. “You really can never have too much shirtless John lying about the place.”

John rolled his eyes. “I’m not stripping off purely for your amusement. If Claude has what he needs I’ll keep my shirt on, thanks very much.”

Grandmère laughed and bounced over to the sofa nearest the tea tray. “Come, Sherlock, sit and keep us both out of trouble by telling me a story. Tell me about one of your cases, they’re always so exciting!”

“Hm. Which one shall we tell her about, John? What haven’t you written up recently?” Instead of sitting he strode across the room and plucked an apple from a bowl of fruit. He hesitated, took two more and tossed the first into the air, then with an air of laziness about it, began to juggle them.

Startled by the revelation of his possessing this skill, John answered distractedly, “I don’t - oh, do you read the blog, Grandmère?”

“Even Grandmères have laptops these days, Doctor.”

John blinked. “Right, I suppose so. Erm, let’s see, what’ve we been up to? There was the weird blue dress thing, and the redheaded bloke,” he offered.

Sherlock, however, waved his hand dismissively. “Boring.”

“Hm, okay, what about Violet Smith, the cyclist and all her suitors?”

His friend perked up. “Oh, yes that one did get exciting toward the end, didn’t it? Let’s do that one.”

“Right, well, this girl shows up at the flat one day, but we’ve actually been rather busy lately and at the time Sherlock was already in the middle of the Harden case.”

Sherlock interrupted, “But John insisted we hear her out; I suspect this had more than a little to do with her physical charms.” He underscored this statement by tossing one of the apples at John, who caught it neatly.

“She wouldn’t go away!” He tossed the apple back, and it was smoothly reincorporated into Sherlock’s rhythm. “Believe me, I offered to help her myself, but she insisted on seeing you.”

“As well she should have,” he preened.

“Yes, yes, you’re the brains of the operation; I’m well aware. So, anyway, she tells us that she and her mother are on their own, father died years ago. Up until a few months prior, she’d been working as a nanny in London but had been persuaded to take a better-paying job out near Farnham in Surrey and she’d been coming back to town on weekends to see her mother.”

Sherlock cut in and took over. “The circumstances under which she accepted the new position were odd. Months before this, nearly a year in fact, she had been contacted on one of those useless websites -,”

“Facebook,” John filled in and protested, “You love facebook, you use it all the time for cases.”

Sherlock took no notice of this aside. “-by someone who was claiming to be her dead father’s brother who had emigrated to Australia twenty years earlier and hadn’t been heard from since.” He plucked a china shepherdess from a dainty shelf and added her to the spin of apples.

“Now, honestly, who believes that story?” Grandmère snorted.

“Exactly,” concurred John. “But as it turns out, there was some truth to the tale. There really was an uncle, and he was rich.”

“Really?” Grandmère commented, “They never turn out to be actually rich!”

“This one was, really loaded.”

“Yes,” Sherlock allowed, eyes on apples and shepherdess, “but our inestimable Miss Smith was not yet aware that her uncle was in possession of a fortune. The man himself was not doing most of the actual communicating you see. He had been persuaded by two young ruffians of his acquaintance that he should make virtual contact with his niece -,”

“And heir,” John put in, “as he was a grumpy old sort who didn’t trust lawyers.”

“And did not, therefore, have a will, rendering his nearest relation heir to his fortune,” Sherlock re-hijacked the tale. “It wasn’t at all surprising that the old gentleman wouldn’t be familiar with computers. So the situation as it stood was that Miss Smith was being digitally wooed with a variant on the Cyrano model. These two young men, Woodley and Carruthers, acted as go-betweens but they very carefully didn’t mention anything about money and advised the uncle to avoid the subject as well in his rare direct communication with her. They informed him that the internet lent itself to financial frauds and that Miss Smith might be made uncomfortable if money was brought into their correspondence.”

“The bounders!” exclaimed Claude.

“Indeed,” said Sherlock. A decorative ceramic lemon joined his miniature circus ring. “Though of course in their communications with Miss Smith they were the very picture of helpfulness and good cheer, sending her digital media they’d acquired and emails containing what are imagined by some people to be funny jokes.”

“Then, after they’d gained her trust by keeping up the virtual relationship for almost a year, they hit her with the whammy that they were moving to England,” said John.

“Oh dear, that’s not good,” said Grandmère with concern in her voice.

“Certainly not,” said Sherlock. “But Miss Smith had been successfully lulled into believing these two scoundrels friendly and agreed that once they were back in the country she would be happy to meet her uncle’s good friends in person.” A Russian nesting doll was taken from its place and set in motion.

“Luckily, Miss Smith wasn’t silly enough to go and meet them on her own.”

“John, you see, was – out – of – luck.” He emphasized each word by tossing an apple at his friend, leaving just the colourful trinkets going round and round in the air. “The lady was already engaged to be married.”

“Me?” He took a bite out of one of the apples and asked around it, “What about the two blokes who were after her for her uncle’s fortune?”

“Yes, it was quite a hurdle for them as well.”

“So the four of them met up in a London pub; Miss Smith, her fiance Cyril Morton, Woodley and Carruthers.”

Sherlock picked up a teacup from the sideboard and tossed it into the air.

“Careful with that one, dear, it’s the last of Great-Grandmother’s wedding china,” Grandmère put in calmly.

Sherlock smiled at her fondly and added a compass which had been sitting beside it. He took up the story. “During the course of the evening Woodley, with the assistance of copious amounts of bitter, betrayed his nature as that of a scoundrel and earned himself a black eye and a split lip courtesy of Morton.”

“Carruthers did better,” John said. “With lots of apologies and a promise that he’d keep Woodley away from her, he managed to keep in Miss Smith’s good graces.”

Sherlock swapped out the china shepherdess for a pair of embroidery shears. “So much so, in fact, that three months later he convinced her to quit her job and become nanny to his own child.”

“He won over Morton because the couple is saving up for the wedding, and Carruthers is paying her twice what she was earning in London, and offering affordable room and board in a separate cottage next to his house. So this is where we came in, and where it starts to get dodgy.”

“Oh my, how exciting!” Grandmère bounced a bit on the sofa.

Sherlock added a small brass terrier to his floating collection. “We’d already been informed that Miss Smith was travelling back to town each weekend to see her mother. Now she went on to confirm that she has always been an avid cyclist and so it was the most natural thing in the world for her to cycle to and from the train station on this commute.” He put the lemon down and plucked a jade Buddha from its resting place.

“Two weeks before her visit to us, she happened to look back and see that she was being followed by another bicycle. This was strange because since she had moved she had realized how few neighbours Carruthers had out there. It was odd to be running into anyone at all, much less find someone taking the same route she was on. Then, the same bloke appeared when she came down from London to go back to work, so she knew it couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. It wasn’t as if the man had been on her train, he was just following her on her route between Carruther’s place and the station, then back again.”

The teacup was swapped out for a small brass oil lamp, and the terrier for a gorgeous inlaid netsuke. “She acted quite sensibly,” Sherlock allowed. “She slowed down, speeded up, tried to catch a closer look at a crossroad, but her efforts were unsuccessful.”

“The next week, the same thing happened when she cycled to the station. She got so frustrated that she came straight to us from the train that Saturday and refused to take no for an answer.”

“I, of course, was engrossed in the Harden matter, so I sent John down to observe her trip back on Monday.” Swiftly, he replaced the objects one by one, each to its proper place and then started again with a set of six turkish coffee cups, all soon circling in the air before him.

“Everything was exactly as she said it was. He was following her when she reached my hiding spot. She was so annoyed by that point that she had a little run at him, but still couldn’t get a good look at his face. The bloke disappeared completely after following her from the station.”

“Yes,” Sherlock remarked witheringly, “he came back with that enlightening information.” One cup became a small cut glass bowl.

“Now look, Sherlock, you specifically told me to conceal myself. You then told me to use my own judgement, and I decided that haring all over the countryside asking questions and attracting attention was a bad idea. What was I even supposed to ask people? You’d all but said it had to be an admirer from her past, and none of them was going to be living out there in the middle of nowhere.”

“John, please, the only conceivable place the bicyclist could have been disappearing to was the grounds of Charlington Hall.” The second cup became a perfume bottle.

Claude and Grandmère exchanged a fond look and tried to hide their matching amused smiles.

“Yes,” he returned just barely patiently, “and we’d covered that beforehand as well, and I’d poked round a bit, but there was nothing obviously to be done to determine who was in residence without marching up to the place, ringing the bell and asking.”

“Sometimes, John, you display a truly startling lack of imagination. It really is one of your only faults.” The third cup became a jewelled dagger; sheathed, John was glad to note.

He threw up his hands. “Well, anyway, Grandmère, what your oh-so-superior grandson is implying is that I should have had the brilliant notion of going down the local and chatting up the barmaid.”

“Which I then proceeded to do with much more useful results. I learned that the gentleman in residence at the Hall goes by the name of Williamson and he was possibly a defrocked priest.” The fourth cup became one of Claude’s charcoal sticks.

“You then got into a barney with Woodley before you could discover any more, other than the fact that he’d been down to visit the Hall.”

Sherlock sniffed. “I won the barney, and learning that Woodley was in the vicinity told me all I needed to know to move forward with the case.” The fifth cup became a very large, gaudy-looking ring.

John decided it wasn’t worth arguing the point. “The next day we got an email from Miss Smith. It turns out that her new boss, Carruthers, had finally made his play. He’d sat her down, explained that he’d fallen in love with her and wanted her to consider breaking off her engagement to Morton to give him a chance to win her over.”

“She, I believe the phrase is, ‘tried to let him down gently’. He’d taken it fairly well, and she had agreed to see out the week, but after that would be moving back to London as she felt things would be a bit strained after that revelation.” The sixth cup became a small Wedgewood vase.

“By now, of course, Sherlock had worked out what was going on with Woodley, Carruthers and the uncle, and the fact that Woodley was still on the scene was bad news.”

“My texts to Miss Smith were going unanswered, so it seemed prudent to go down yet again and check on her.” He began to work his way backwards, reclaiming the cups from their various positions about the room.

“And what did you find?” asked Grandmère eagerly, clapping her hands with excitement.

“Grandmère,” Sherlock drawled, “you really won’t believe it. Woodley had proven more of an idiot than even I could have predicted.” Neatly, he took the six whirling cups and one-by-one replaced them onto the matching tray from which he had originally plucked them, circling the pot.

“He’d kidnapped her,” John revealed.

“Good god!” exclaimed Claude, and Grandmère let out a shocked gasp.

Sherlock had taken up another set of nesting dolls, a bit larger than the one he’d included in his routine earlier, and proceeded to take out the individual pieces. He set them into motion, a whirling circle of red and gold as he continued, “Even more ridiculous, he believed he could actually force her to marry him and that the marriage would be legal. Have you ever heard anything so utterly stupid?”

“We knocked up Carruthers, who confirmed our suspicions and revealed that he was our mysterious cyclist. He’d been following Miss Smith because he knew Woodley was in the neighborhood.”

“When we discovered that she was indeed missing, the three of us stormed the Hall and found Woodley physically restraining a gagged Miss Smith as the villain forced her to go through a farce of a marriage ceremony.”

“You remember the defrocked priest?” asked John. Claude and Grandmère nodded. “Utterly insane, he was. He’d convinced Woodley he could perform a legally binding marriage.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and said sarcastically, “But, John, they had a license, what more could they have needed?”

John laughed. “Right. Aside from a willing bride, you mean?”

“How the devil did they get a license?” demanded Claude.

“A forgery, Uncle Claude. Just something to wave around in front of Miss Smith’s nose.”

“Who was furious, by the way. She wasn’t fooled for a second, of course, knew she wasn’t in any danger of ending up married.”

Sherlock apparently got bored with the dolls and set them down in a line, largest to smallest. He paused in order to announce dramatically, “She was surprised when Carruthers shot Woodley, though.”

“Shot him! Oh my,” exclaimed Grandmère.

“Mmmm,” mused Sherlock, “it seems he fell in love with her somewhere along the way.”

“Oh, splendid,” Grandmère declared. “What are you going to call it on the blog?”

“Hm. I don’t know; The Suspicious Cyclist, maybe?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but forbore to comment.

*****  
Musicke. The Witches Dance, and vanish.  
*****

On Christmas Eve night, the quartet performed Bartók’s quartets four and two for a small but appreciative audience. John, of course, attended, and he was joined by Lionel and Jean as well as Marshall from the shoot, who he learned was married to the cello player. Grandmère and Claude had come up to the house especially for the concert, and the Hannay contingent of Richard, Mary and Peter was fully represented. Viola and Hannibal were rather notably absent, but Grandmother was in attendance. Claire of the Beatles conversation and the tweedy-looking taxidermist also turned up, as well as a few people John had not previously encountered.

As soon as the music began, John cursed himself for not simply attending one of the rehearsals. Lapsed amateur clarinettist though he was, even he could understand how the cacophony which was the work of Béla Bartók could stir up the emotions of someone as sensitive to music as Sherlock. It wasn’t bad, far from it; despite its tendency to shriek at times, it was quite beautiful, but it was also an emotional fistfight waiting to happen. The instruments argued amongst each other in full voice at times, and of course Sherlock’s brain – as wide open to music as it was firmly shut to so many other things – had got itself caught up in the musical back and forth, to and fro of it all.

Already unsettled over John’s pain and grief; on edge because of his parents’ presence; it was no wonder he’d fallen prey to the emotions of the music and – basically – flipped out in a spectacular fashion. Well, he reflected, at least he could stop being quite so worried about his friend now. The situation had been a perfect storm of sorts and things should go back to (well, their particular flavour of) normal once they got home. He wouldn’t actually have to set up some elaborate, Pythonesque scheme to try and trick Sherlock into speaking with a therapist, thank christ.

Though he was inclined to hold a grudge, the music won him over in the end. All the musicians seemed to be enjoying themselves while playing, and in a startling display of just what made Bartók’s work so original and delightful, there came a movement when all four of them put down their bows and plucked their way through it. It was amazing, like nothing else John had ever seen or heard.

When the performance had come to an end, Grandmother stood up dramatically and bestowed praise upon each of the members of the quartet, paying especial attention to Sherlock, in John’s view. She then joined John, Claude and Grandmère where they were seated. “I saw Hannibal and Viola off this morning,” she remarked conversationally.

“Oh, did you?” John inquired innocently.

Grandmother smiled a Cheshire Cat smile and purred, “Yes. It was quite the illuminating interlude.” She turned to Claude and Grandmère, who were looking curious. “I’m afraid Viola was quite distressed,” she informed them.

“That’s not terribly unusual,” Claude observed.

“No,” Grandmother agreed, “but in this case I would have to say she was quite justified.” She smiled again.

Grandmère rolled her eyes and prompted, “Do tell us why, Florence dear.”

Grandmother looked over at John, who was maintaining an air of polite expectancy.

“It seems Hannibal took one of the cars out and had a bit of a smash up.”

“Again?” commented Claude drily.

“Yes,” purred Grandmother. “He was rather banged up as a result.”

“Hm,” observed Grandmère.

“That’s too bad,” commiserated John soberly. “He should really be more careful.”

“Yes, he really should, you’re very right Doctor.” She paused, and beamed a smile at him. “We’re so glad you were able to attend our little gathering this year. I must say that the results have proven simply smashing. Your presence is very much appreciated.”

“Grandmother, your hospitality has been boundless and I can honestly say I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” John told her sincerely.

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, and John felt warm, safe and completely happy for the first time in a very long while.

After they had drunk a Holiday toast, the audience slowly dispersed. Among the last to leave were Forrester and Carlton, the former absolutely replete from having done justice to his god. Carlton petted him fondly, as one does a purring cat, then bundled him off to bed.

John found himself in the relatively congenial company of Sherlock, Mycroft and Not Anthea; he briefly considered trying once more to find out what her name actually was, and wondered if Mycroft knew.

Then she got up and very deliberately curled herself cosily into Mycroft’s lap.

John gaped and his brain sputtered in protest.

Mycroft?

The universe was having him on, it had to be.

Half the people alive thought he, John Watson, was shagging (also engaged to, his brain reminded him) Sherlock, and Mycroft ended up getting the girl?

Mycroft????

For his part, Mycroft was feeling unsettled about this turn of events as well. It wasn’t every day that one found oneself very clearly claimed as he had been that night in the parlour cum command centre. He was still sorting out the consequences and new obligations which came along with the insertion into one’s life of a beautiful, intelligent, crossbow-wielding mistress who demanded foot rubs rather more regularly than one would have imagined she might, if one had previously given it any thought.  
His chief concern was currently the absence of an appropriate holiday gift, and he had already had several panicky moments as he had attempted to order up some emergency fire opals from Guadalajara, Hanadama Grade pearls from Tokyo, several bolts of the finest hand-woven silk China had to offer, and an Arabian stallion - without the use of his assistant’s Blackberry (He wasn’t fooling anyone. She knew. He knew she knew. She knew he knew she knew. She was very excited about the silk; she had plans for it, naughty ones.).

What fussed him even more, however, was the fact that these were so clearly panic offerings. A good gift, a really good gift, was so very hard to give someone. It needed to take into account not only what the recipient believed she wanted, but also what she actually wanted; it must reflect the thought and care the giver had invested in choosing the gift. It should be something which would make her smile and think of him each time her eyes fell upon it or sought it out. The thing which angered Mycroft was that he was one of the few people in the world who could be bothered to offer up this sort of gift, one which would be appreciated and cherished, but there was simply no time in this case.

There was no time to arrange to relocate the Mona Lisa so that every day he could show her how much more beautiful she was. There was no time to fly to Rome and prowl through the antique shops until he was able to locate a perfectly preserved marble statuette, a lost work by one of the Masters to adorn her desk and delight her eye. There was no time to hunt down the piece by Faberge which featured jewels precisely matching her eyes. There was no time to secure a first edition of Burns from which they could trade off reading to each other.

And so he was reduced to this, giving a panic gift as his first offering at her altar. He was honestly ashamed of himself. He would do better next year; he promised himself that, and in the meantime he would make it up to her with gifts for waking up beside him and gifts for remembering to order his salads without tomatoes; he would present her with gifts for unsnarling the knot of his daily appointments without complaint and gifts for rolling her eyes when he asked her one more time how the v-lookup nested within an if-statement worked; he would offer up gifts for the way she scrunched up her nose when she was honestly considering shooting someone and gifts for not actually shooting most of them; also gifts for the ones she did shoot. He was going to have to start a spread sheet so that he didn’t duplicate himself.

Across the room, Sherlock was thinking deep thoughts; like his brother, they were leading him in a gifty sort of direction, but that was mostly a coincidence caused by the impending holiday. He started by thinking about the chance remark which had brought John into his life. ‘I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for.’ He didn’t remember if those had been his exact words, but whatever they had been he thanked Science he had uttered them at exactly the right time and place, and that John had done the same. This led him to consider how very true those fateful words had been. Sherlock was perfectly aware that his simple occupation of the flat (not to even mention case-related activities) put John in constant danger of torture, accidental (All right, there was also the possibility of deliberate, but not by Sherlock himself!) poisoning; being shot at, stabbed, taken hostage, or exploded - the possibilities were endless, really.

And John put up with it all. He put up with the body parts in the fridge and in the tub and in the microwave. He put up with the sulks and the drama and the showing off. He had even managed to put up with Sherlock’s knocking over the blocks of their home and then forgiven him for it.

Tomorrow was Christmas.

If anyone in the world deserved a present, it was John.

He thought about it. He really did; he focused his entire brain on the problem of what gift it would be best to give John, because when Sherlock did something he did it correctly and exceptionally well. It didn’t actually take very long for him to crack it, and in just a few minutes he was striding across the room to where John sat looking gobsmacked and staring at Mycroft, who seemed to have acquired an innamorata.

“Paper, John,” he snapped.

His partner looked up, startled. “Oh.” He pulled out his ever-present notebook and pen and handed them to Sherlock.

He dashed off the note, stuck the pen in the book to mark the page, and handed it back to him. “I’m going up to bed. Are you staying up or will you walk with me?”

He glanced back at Mycroft and his lapful of Not Anthea, quickly averted his eyes, and stood up. “Going with you, definitely. Let’s go, right now in fact, move.” He gave Sherlock a bit of a shove, and they were out the door.

As had become routine, John hugged an extremely amused Sherlock firmly before they went into their separate bedrooms.

It wasn’t until he put his notebook down in order to begin undressing that John recalled Sherlock hadn’t torn out the page he’d written on. Curious, he opened the notebook.

His friend had written:

I, Sherlock Holmes, do promise to relieve John Watson of the chore of a single trip to the shop in order to get in groceries and supplies for the flat at 221B Baker Street. I will undertake this endeavour, without question, at whatever time I am instructed to do so by John Watson .

Happy Christmas, John.

*****  
Enter a Doctor of Physicke, and a Wayting Gentlewoman.  
*****

On the morning of Boxing Day, John was reading the paper in the library when a large group of people, buzzing with purpose, came in and assumed various positions of expectant attentiveness. Persons of the elderly persuasion were given the privilege of the proper seats and the younger specimens draped themselves artfully on sofa arms or sprawled on the carpet; one man seated himself in the middle of a round table and several others quickly joined him on his perch. John recognized most of these people in passing; the triplets were there as well as an indulgent-looking Richard who had given him a placid nod of greeting. Not Anthea had perched herself on the arm of the chair Richard was occupying and her Blackberry had reappeared. After a moment, he put together the thought that the group seemed to be made up of those who had been mostly absent from the activities and more concerned with rushing about from room to room and declaiming lines as they paced the halls. These were the actors.

After a few minutes, during which he finished the article he was reading, tiny Grandmother swept in at the head of a parade of others, and John realized that this was the most people he’d seen in one place since they’d arrived, the only exception being around the gargantuan dining table. Grandmother settled herself into her chair and the flood of people who had followed her in fitted themselves into the room wherever they could. John congratulated himself on his foresight in securing a seat, then realized that since he’d had no expectation of the library suddenly flooding full of people, the sentiment was rather misplaced.

Grandmother cleared her throat expectantly, and silence immediately fell. John’s paper made a little rippling noise that resounded like Big Ben’s toll in the wake of this invisible mute button having been pushed. All eyes turned to him. “Sorry! Sorry, I’ll just…” He folded the paper quickly and set it down on the table next to him. “Sorry!” he added for good measure.

Grandmother proclaimed, “Don’t be silly, Doctor. I’m so glad to see you here. I wasn’t sure how much interest you’ve been taking in our Production since your arrival.”

“Oh, erm, great interest; lots of interest on my part, of course.”

“Excellent. I am so pleased to hear it.” The tiny, ancient woman beamed at him. Then, with an air of getting on with things, she crisply opened the leather-bound book she held on her lap. She spoke in ringing tones which reached every eager ear in the room.

“As we will all experience this evening, I believe this year’s Production has proven truly inspired. It is an excellent example of its kind. And so, we now turn to the future. We look forward to next year and the improvements we will all make during that time before we gather here again to celebrate the Bard and his works. As is traditional, I have chosen a comedy to follow a tragedy.”

The atmosphere in the room was heavy with anticipation and it made John feel a little nervous for some reason. He wished someone would laugh and break the tension, but the extended Holmes clan was not treating what was going on in this room with even the slightest bit of levity. He shifted unconsciously in his chair.

“The coming year will see us exploring the genius of –,” It seemed the entire room leaned toward her in excited anticipation. “Much Ado About Nothing.” The result of this pronouncement was thunderous applause. John joined in since he would have been the only one not clapping if he hadn’t.

After allowing the enthusiasm of her audience to die away slightly, she continued, “And we will set this masterpiece in the milieu of the Regency period. There was more applause, though not quite as much as before.

Grandmother smiled happily as she surveyed her enthralled audience. She cleared her throat again, and everything else stilled in response. “Now, since he has confirmed his interest in our endeavour, and being a soldier himself, I wondered if our own Doctor Watson might condescend to accept the role of Benedick. I believe this would emphasize the warm welcome we wish to extend to him in joining the family and taking such good care of our Sherlock.”

The room buzzed with whispers and gasps and bursts of scattered applause, and all eyes turned once again to him. Mycroft, who he hadn’t noticed was present until now, cleared his throat and began, “Grandmother -,” but John’s mind was already racing and it very definitely didn’t seem like something he ought to refuse, so he broke in and assured everyone, “I’d be happy to. Love to, in fact. Much Ado, great show. That’s a really warm gesture, thanks!”

Grandmother beamed at him again. “Wonderful. Now then - ,”

Mycroft’s tone was gentle when he cut her off, “Sherlock, do come in. John has just kindly agreed to play Benedick in next year’s Production.”

Sherlock, who had apparently either been passing the door or intending to join this mass gathering, was framed in the doorway and went completely still for a split second; his eyes grew wide. “Oh, John, no; you don’t have to do that.”

“No, no. I want to,” he assured his friend.

In response, Sherlock began picking his way across the room, looking like a giant water bug as miniscule patches of floor were uncovered by shifted hands and knees to allow his progress on tiptoe. “No, really, John. It would be better if you ceded the honour to someone else.”

He reached John’s side and dropped awkwardly into a crouch next to his chair. John leaned over slightly and hissed in his ear, “It’s a warm gesture in order to welcome me to the family, you git. I can’t just say no.”

Just as intensely, Sherlock insisted, “You really don’t want to do this, John, trust me. It’s quite elaborate; everyone takes it extremely seriously.”

John rolled his eyes. “I will read the play a couple of times beforehand, you know. I’m not an idiot; I know the story, this isn’t a big deal. I don’t get stage fright; we put on a panto in uni once.” When Sherlock didn’t look convinced, he continued reassuringly, “Honestly, it’s fine if they want to put a sword belt round my waist for a couple of hours and product into my hair. I can’t respond to ‘welcome to the family’ with ‘bugger off, thanks but no thanks’; it’s your Great Gran for heaven’s sake, Sherlock!”

Sherlock regarded him intently for a moment and then his eyes lit with humour. For a second, John thought he might giggle. He certainly spoke through a bit of one when he asked, “You’re determined, then? Nothing I say will convince you otherwise?”

“Yes, I am determined; and no, you cannot talk me out of it,” he responded with finality.

Sherlock nodded. “Very well.” John noticed that his mouth twitched into an amused grin. He rose to his feet and placed his hand over his heart before announcing, “I humbly request the role of Beatrice.” This caused more excited buzzing noises, whispered speculation and gasps of surprise.

“Hang on!” John stood up. “I’d quite like a girl for that, if you please.”

“No, I’m very sorry, John, but it’s the only practicable way the thing can be done. You’ll need to rehearse with your Beatrice and I am the only one who could conceivably spend enough time with you to do so.”

“You’re off your trolley.”

Grandmother made a bid to regain control of the room. “Sherlock is correct. The roles of Benedick and Beatrice should go to persons who will have ample time to rehearse together. You are awarded the role, Sherlock, based upon both this pragmatic concern as well as your excellent and skilled Ophelia.” Sherlock bowed dramatically to the praise and the sprinkling of applause which broke out, apparently in remembrance of his Ophelia.

John suddenly wondered precisely how badly - and what, exactly - he had just cocked up.

*****  
Thunder and Lightning. Enter three Witches.  
*****

Dinner that evening was early and the fare was light compared to what had been on offer previous days. When John remarked on this, Sherlock supplied, “There will be another light meal served after the Production.”

The dining room was suffused with an air of keen anticipation, and the conversation was largely concerned with The Scottish Play. When the meal drifted to a close, the actors bustled off, and John and Sherlock ended up in one of the drawing rooms where they were recruited for a game of Charades - by someone who really should have known better.

“No, no, you blithering idiot! How could it be Black Beauty when he’s clearly indicated it takes place in Japan?”

“Sherlock, calm down. It’s just a game.”

“It’s a game for blithering idiots!”

“Well, yes, and right now we’re playing at being blithering idiots. Go on, try that scenario for a while. See how it feels to you.”

John was saved from having to find out how that would go over for any length of time when the clock chimed the quarter hour before nine. Instantly, everyone in the room stood and moved toward the door. There was a bit of a rush and a bottleneck as they all streamed out of the room. Sherlock and John lingered, allowing the congestion to clear before Sherlock rose to his feet. “Come on then, it’s sure to be good.”

He, quite surprisingly, led John to the front entrance. “Is it outside, then?”

“Yes, the theatre is beyond the maze.”

“There’s an actual theatre?” He’d been feeling increasingly nervous about all this since Sherlock’s scene in the library.

“Of course. They take it quite seriously, as I said.”

The remark was made in an ‘all innocence’ sort of manner and it did nothing to put John at ease.

The path was lit with fairy lights and as they approached the building groups of small children could be seen chasing each other among the young trees that surrounded it. It was a reproduction of The Globe. John knew this because he had seen a production at the one in London once, a handful of girlfriends ago. He gaped and unconsciously stopped in his tracks.

After a stunned moment, he realized a giggling Sherlock was plucking at his sleeve. “John, come on, we don’t want to be late; there won’t be any seats left.” He allowed himself to be propelled into the theatre and inserted into a seat.

Hazily, he took in the buzzing audience (Gordian bloody knot) of elegantly attired Holmeses. “You bastard,” he breathed. “You utter bastard. Seriously? They take it seriously? You failed to mention that they erected the bloody Globe in the back garden!”

Beside him, Sherlock snickered, but had the grace to muffle the sound with a hand. “You were quite determined, remember.”

The lights which had been softly illuminating the house blinked twice then went out.

John jumped in his seat when there was, out of nowhere, a violent CRACK of thunder followed by a blinding flash of lightning. A torrent of rain drenched the stage and a strong wind howled and pulled at the entire building as the glorious blond triplets, costumed in bits of fur and madly-coloured feathers pinned to skin-tight cat suits, crawled across the stage from opposing corners to meet in the middle, calling out their lines in defiance of the storm that battered at them and the rain which caused their hair to hang stringily in their faces. They clutched at each other and rose as one to stridently declare in unison, “There to meet with MacBeth!” The storm stopped instantly.

John’s throat went dry as Afghanistan. “Good production value there,” Sherlock whispered into his ear, and there was laughter in his voice, the bastard.

It only got worse.

Not Anthea made a truly terrifying Lady MacBeth. The murderous glint in her eyes as she declaimed, “Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full of the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way,” made John unconsciously reach for the pistol he didn’t have on him. He had absolutely no idea how it was done, but Birnam Bloody Wood came, and the ghost of Banquo was actually transparent; he knew this because MacBeth had thrust his hand through his chest. Even Richard, previously such a brother-in-arms, now betrayed him by laying on a MacDuff which an Olivier would not have scorned to praise. During the course of the Production, John accepted the fact that he was utterly fucked.

Sherlock, the bastard, giggled the entire walk back to the house. “Oh, don’t worry, John, that panto you did in uni will stand you in excellent stead. I’m not at all worried about your keeping up your end.”

“Neither am I, as I’m planning to find some unemployed West End swot and pay him to take my place.”

“Oh, come now, it will be fun. We’ll dress you in regimentals, put some product in your hair, a sword in your hand and you’ll be off and running.”

“Ha bloody ha, Sherlock. It’s a good thing we’ve been cast in a comedy; you’d be wasted in anything else.”

“It will be fine, John. We just need to prepare properly.”

The light meal which was served back at the house did nothing to allay John’s anxiety. Belatedly, he realized that at some point a programme (done in glossy full colour and containing actual adverts) had been thrust at him and he dazedly made the discovery that it included a feedback form. These were collected during the meal and afterwards Sherlock gleefully (the sodding bastard) steered him into the large parlour off the dining room – and then there was a Discussion of the Production.

Not Anthea was praised to the heavens, and the decision to set the play in an anonymous, emo-gothic-sort-of time and place which featured a stark black backdrop was (he got the feeling not for the first time) hotly criticised and just as hotly defended. Someone pointed out that the lighting had been slightly off during one of MacBeth’s soliloquies, and someone else remarked that the costuming had been superb this year before cattily sniping, “with the exception of Hecate’s headdress, of course.” The item in question had fallen apart rather spectacularly during her second appearance on stage. The blocking (whatever that was – it seemed to have to do with choreography, John thought hazily) of the opening scene met with approval while the same of the combat scene at the end was sharply torn apart.

All of this swirled around in John’s head, whipping up a growing whirlpool of terror. When MacBeth was called upon to defend his choice to play his character with a pronounced limp and he launched into an extemporaneous speech about historical accuracy and the code of the warrior, John abruptly stood up and practically ran from the room. He walked far enough that the ringing tones of MacBeth’s defence faded to nothing, then turned to the nearest wall in an attempt to ground himself; the cool of the plaster felt like heaven against his forehead.

After a moment, he realized someone was rubbing reassuring circles on his back. Sherlock, of course.

“You don’t have to do it.”

He sighed, taking the opportunity to pull a good deal of oxygen into his lungs. “Of course I have to do it. But I’m not bloody defending any bleeding limp!”

“John -,”

“No, don’t bother. I agreed to do it, and it’s your Great Gran for heaven’s sake. And -,” he paused, turning to look his friend in the eye. “It’s family, Sherlock. I feel connected to a family again for the first time in a very, very long time. It’s Grandmère and Claude and Richard and Peter, and I like them all. Even Mycroft bloody told me what I needed to know for once.” He snorted in disbelief. “And you know how unbelievably rare that is! We’re now apparently actually united in protecting you from your parents.”

Sherlock digested this. Thoughtfully, he responded, “How long, I wonder, has it been since I gained another brother? I unfortunately failed to note the exact moment.”

John smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid I did too. It seems we’ll never know for certain.”

“Do try to continue to be more useful than Mycroft.”

He sighed another deep sigh, then pushed himself away from the wall and started walking back the way he had come. “Let’s get back in there. I need to know what to expect.”

“You are the very bravest of men, John Watson.”

“At least when I invaded Afghanistan they gave me a gun. I don’t even know what they should issue someone infiltrating the Holmes family.”

“Alexander’s sword, of course. How does it feel to be the ruler of all Asia?”

“Hm. It’ll feel better once I start to see the profits rolling in from all those little plastic doodads they export.”

“Oh dear, I suppose now we’ll need a pre-nuptial agreement. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m marrying you for your money.”

John laughed, and that set Sherlock off as well, so they giggled all the way back down the hallway.

*****  
Flourish. Exeunt Omnes.

FINIS.  
*****

**Author's Note:**

> Acknowledgements: All MacBeth stage directions are taken from either Project Gutenberg's Etext of Shakespeare's The Tragedie of Macbeth which can be found here or Project Gutenberg’s Etext of THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH which can be found here
> 
> Some lines in the Silver Blaze section are taken directly from the original work by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, also accessible via Project Gutenberg here
> 
> [aside] Project Gutenberg is brilliant!
> 
> The poem which is quoted by Forester Holmes (parenthetical insertions are mine) is Bartók’s String Quartet No. 5 written by Géza Képes and translated by Peter Laki.
> 
> The lines which come directly from The Reichenbach Fall are taken from the transcript here by arianedevere. Many thanks for all of her hard work. quarryquest did suggest changing an ‘er’ to an ‘um’ which I then did, but otherwise I used this work verbatim.
> 
> Ahem – all my LJ friends listed below provided me with wonderful suggestions and support during this process, please do not think their contributions were limited to those I list below, this is simply a fairly random sampling of the first things which came to mind when I sat down to type this. It is a snapshot, not a comprehensive view of the help everyone has given me during the course of writing this story. I’m also hoping that I haven’t left anyone off as I’ve sorted through posts in haste. If I have, please, please don’t be offended and do let me know!
> 
> Many thanks to:  
> 221b_hound who inspired it all, and continues to gift us with absolutely superb Sherlock fic. Honestly, go read any (then all) of her stories right now, you will not be disappointed! Also, here there be Plutarch!!  
> northernwalker for the gift that is Grandmère and Claude. These characters are the ones who make the Holmes family work in this fic. Thank you!!  
> quarryquest who provided the setting for the estate, told me about the Red Kites, and told me it worked when I asked. She is also writing a fabulous post TRF fic which is currently a wip - hop on board!  
> djarum99 who solved the riddle of the Holmes family group noun, and who read over Sherlock’s über troublesome parents and confirmed for me they were plausible.  
> natsuko1978 (Who very kindly taught me the invaluable word ‘shufti’.) and mizz_history, both of whom sat down to give me the info I need to send Sherlock shopping. *rubs hands together in anticipation* This is part of the first Baker Street Interlude, and I can’t wait to get started!  
> f_m_r_l who gifted me with The Attic. *worships at your feet* If you're taking recs from here, go read her fic as well!  
> pargoletta who sat me down and talked to me about Bartók, told me I could subject Forester to interrogation by the Hungarian Secret Police, kindly corrected the worst of my musical errors, and let me run a bow across the strings of a violin for the very first time in my life. She also makes a mean Chinese chicken dish (yum!). And again with the fic rec!  
> jobia who confirmed Claude could plausibly work the way he does in order to keep the pose a secret…for now…and insisted I include creepy artistic staring which, it turns out, is pretty much comic gold, I love that bit!


End file.
